Nobody Could Have Predicted

Barack Obama:

"It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don't cause spills. They are technologically very advanced."

Generally, I guess he's right. But given that the second worst oil spill in history was caused by an oil rig and that, as we all can plainly see, it just takes one damn accident to severely fuck an entire ecosystem, is that sort of Pollyanna talk really the appropriate approach to deepwater oil production?

According to this morning's Wall Street Journal, American rigs are not required to be quite as "technologically advanced" as their counterparts in Norway or Brazil from a safety perspective.

The oil well spewing crude into the Gulf of Mexico didn't have a remote-control shut-off switch used in two other major oil-producing nations as last-resort protection against underwater spills.

The lack of the device, called an acoustic switch, could amplify concerns over the environmental impact of offshore drilling after the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig last week.

Now, upon close examination of what this acoustic switch is supposed to do, one can reasonably conclude that it probably wouldn't be any more likely to trip the well's blowout preventer than the robotic subs currently failing to perform this task. But, of course, we'll never know for sure because,

The U.S. considered requiring a remote-controlled shut-off mechanism several years ago, but drilling companies questioned its cost and effectiveness, according to the agency overseeing offshore drilling. The agency, the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, says it decided the remote device wasn't needed because rigs had other back-up plans to cut off a well.

So far the other back-up plans are not performing. Which may, in fact, be the reason the industry opts for those plans over ones that, at times, tend to work too well.

Industry consultants and petroleum engineers said that an acoustic remote-control may have been able to stop the well, but too much is still unknown about the accident to say that with certainty.

Rigs in Norway and Brazil are equipped with the remote-control devices, which can trigger the blowout preventers from a lifeboat in the event the electric cables connecting the valves to the drilling rig are damaged.

While U.S. regulators have called the acoustic switches unreliable and prone, in the past, to cause unnecessary shut-downs, Inger Anda, a spokeswoman for Norway's Petroleum Safety Authority, said the switches have a good track record in the North Sea. "It's been seen as the most successful and effective option," she said.

I wonder how much weight companies give the risk of "unnecessary shut-downs" as compared to the risk of total destruction of over 400 species of wildlife in the fragile Louisiana estuaries when they do their analysis.

The area under threat produces the largest total seafood landings in the lower 48 states, is a vital wintering or resting spot for more than 70 percent of the nation's waterfowl, is used by all 110 neo-tropical migratory songbirds, and produces 50 percent of the nation's wild shrimp crop, 35 percent of its blue claw crabs and 40 percent of its oysters. Researchers say 90 percent of all the marine species in the Gulf of Mexico depend on coastal estuaries at some point in their lives, and most of those estuaries are in Louisiana -- endangered by an oil spill that could last months.

"This is a really important time for so many species in this ecosystem, because they're just begun spawning and nesting," said Melanie Driscoll, a Audubon Society staffer who is director of bird conservation for the Louisiana Coastal Initiative.

Deep water rigs like the Horizon appear to have brought oil exploration to a place where the technology necessary to do the drilling has outstripped the technology necessary to maintain the safety of the people who do the work and the people affected by possible mishaps. While it shouldn't surprise anyone that BP's strategy will always be to do the least expensive thing possible and then lie its away out of any (inconceivable) consequences, it should disappoint us to see representatives of a party ostensibly dedicated to protecting working people and their environment stupidly parrot those lies in the media.

Just yesterday, here was BP CEO Tony Heyward's description of the slick:

Earlier on Wednesday, Tony Hayward, BP’s chief executive, described the spilled oil as very light, like “iced tea,” and only one-tenth of a millimeter thick, as thin as a human hair.

In the above-linked post, Judy responds appropriately,

Sorry, Tony. We don't buy the description of the size. As of tonite it's being described as the size of Jamaica What you saw was from space. What WE ARE GOING TO SEE is going to be on our coastline. It is going to DEVASTATE our seafood industry. It is going to RUIN our wildlife refuges when the "iced tea" oil slick washes ashore. Louisiana already has an extremely strong dislike for you and your company, Mr. Hayward based on your slow-as-a-tortoise response to this tragedy. But we DO appreciate that you had your people add the "iced tea" reference for us 'ignorant' Southerners.

And yet this morning, I tuned in to WWL just in time to hear Senator Mary Landrieu scold the host and callers for "being hysterical" Landrieu angrily repeated Heyward's line about "iced tea" several times and insisted that everybody "remain calm" while we get the "15,000 miles of boom" in place that she seemed fairly convinced would actually do something worthwhile. Unless Mary is referring to some sort of super boom (perhaps stuffed with old newspapers?) Mr. Hayward has told her about, I seriously doubt what they will be able to contain the slick during this weekend's expected high seas.

In the meantime, we'll all try to remain calm just like our elected representatives have asked us to do. After all, if they haven't found any reason to get "hysterical" about ensuring the public safety then there's no reason we shouldn't follow their example.