200,000 Gallons A Day

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Originally Posted by Grace

I agree with your premise, Richard, but cleaning up after a hurricane or earthquake is a tad bit different than capping a leaking oil well a mile under the sea.

And, yes, they can work at cleaning up the oil on the shoreline - but not if it keeps rolling on in.

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When the wetbacks show up, to clean up, because no one else wants to do it?

I hope no one complains about it.

Most American 20 somethings want to go to on-line school, get a diploma and get a 45-50 k jobs to start with.

They go to FLA. and all the gulf vacation spots and really do not have any desire to make sure that their kids they have get the same MTV Spring Break
experience they had.

America used to be all about rising up to a challenge?

NOw?

We are a bunch of ------- -------- that cower in the shadow of any adversity.

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I can see someone complaining about the ride in a Conestoga Wagon in the 19th century, the way that people who are grounded by a plume of volcanic gas do.

"Get the ---- out of my wagon, the next stagecoach should be by in a few days."


I understand and respect your opinions.

Do you remember all the idiots and morons who snuck back into NO after Katrina to check on their businesses?

They are ones who 'opened' a business under dire circumstances and helped the area get to a semblance of what used to be.

They didn't wait for Brownie and Bush.

So, I guess with hope and change on the docket, there is no need to panic?


I call BS on the whole govenment, Independent, Dem, Lib and Tea Party.

It's for the people and by the people!

The asshats in Washington D.C. can stuff themselves. When the Next Big Earthquake hits CA/Lost Angeles, do worry about me.

Worry about the idiots with 20 ounces of gold, stocks and bonds and an ATM card.

I'll be in the back yard making soup on my propane stove and sleeping in my tent with dirty cats.;):eek::D

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Originally Posted by Catty1

As opposed to class-action lawsuits, I hope there is one heck of an inquiry held - where the surviving rig workers can be called to testify honestly about what happened, and not have to worry about staying quiet to avoid retribution from the corporation.

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I love you doll, but............

A nice inquiry with bottled water, lunch breaks, stays in nice hotels with the young, nice smelling interns wearing lace camisoles and thong underwear sounds great.

Me? I think at this moment I'd prefer to have some smelly, overweight nasty arse pipefitter/diver/oceanographer/geologist standing over a map and diagram trying to fix things.

Some idiot office wienie, wearing 40 dollar underwear, 70 dollar shirts and 600 dollar suits only care that they dodge the bullet and keep their jobs.


I have BS on speed dial and not afraid to call the number....:eek::);)

Congress is good at inquiries......

Acting on their inquiries, however, not so much......

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Originally Posted by Lady's Human

Congress is good at inquiries......

Acting on their inquiries, however, not so much......

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Acting, is that the same as make believe?:eek::mad::(

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Originally Posted by Lady's Human

Again, the ONLY people who win in a class action are the lawyers.

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I read that the 9/11 lawyers were trying to settle the case(s)....


A third or more of the money set aside for the workers was expected to go to their lawyers. Some plaintiffs had agreed at the start of the case to give as much as 40 percent of any judgment to cover fees and expenses. That might have meant $200 million or more going to attorneys.

http://www.smdailyjournal.com/articl...127309&eddate=


These poor guys dug thru piles of bodies and trash at the site of the WTC and some SOB in an office is going to make money on their P&S?

I guess you have to be good at rifling the pockers of the sick and dying without them knowing?

Morons.

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Originally Posted by Lady's Human

The only people who win in a class action are the lawyers.

The cost of goods goes up, the lawyers get rich, and everyone else gets screwed.

Stop with the litigation. Hell, why sue a company that so far is paying for their mistake willingly?

Again, the ONLY people who win in a class action are the lawyers.

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Hmmmm....like giving strawberries to pigs....eh ???

and for all the little piggies, life is getting worse.......

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Originally Posted by Lady's Human

and for all the little piggies, life is getting worse.......

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You think ????

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Originally Posted by Grace

I agree with your premise, Richard, but cleaning up after a hurricane or earthquake is a tad bit different than capping a leaking oil well a mile under the sea.

And, yes, they can work at cleaning up the oil on the shoreline - but not if it keeps rolling on in.

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Thanks Gretchen - that's the point I was trying to make. Until they can "stop it and mop it", then the nightmare will not end for many, many people, no matter how innovative and resourceful they may be.

Let's save the money that's being spent at the moment and wait until it's finally over before we start to clean up.

:confused:

Instead of keeping the damage to a minimum, let's ride out the storm, see what the MAXIMUM damage is, then use our resources.

This is a mess that the OCs and the OUR government caused.

Greed and the ability to buy a few votes in D.C. made this happen.

The FWs who took the money are harumphing and making the proper sounds of disgust because they thought it was a good idea to go ahead and not demand a two BOV system on our off shore rigs.

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I'm an AH because I advocate standing up and DOING something before someone will tell you to do it.

If people refuse to at least try and make a go of it?

They can move and let some other poor schmuk come in and work at it.

Isn't that what happened after Katrina?

That circumstance demanded people move, but, after the fact?

Who came back to rebuild?

The mindless and the people who refused to be displaced.

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Let's re-implement the "Debit Card Program" that GWB gave to the people who left New Orleans......

THat way we can give everyone some money and kill the CAN DO spirit that our country was built on.:(

Pretty good article covering this oil spill.


The Oil Catastrophe


By Michael T. Klare

MAY 28, 2010 "The Nation" -

May 27, 2010 -- It's hard to grasp the magnitude of the ecological catastrophe unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico as a result of the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill. At this point no one is certain how much oil is pouring from the well into the surrounding ocean. BP, adopting an early government estimate, has claimed that it amounts to a mere 5,000 barrels a day, but some scientists say the amount is closer to 60,000 or 70,000 barrels. Taking the lesser of these estimates, that would translate into the equivalent of an Exxon Valdez spill every four days. Given that this has been going on for five weeks at the time of this writing, the gulf has by now absorbed nine such spill equivalents, with more to come. But picturing the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill—until now the largest in US waters—and multiplying by nine does not begin to convey the scale of the disaster.

For the first time in history, oil is pouring into the deep currents of a semi-enclosed sea, poisoning the water and depriving it of oxygen so that entire classes of marine species are at risk of annihilation. It is as if an underwater neutron bomb has struck the Gulf of Mexico, causing little apparent damage on the surface but destroying the living creatures below.

Who bears responsibility for this unmitigated catastrophe? What should be done in response?

Beginning with the first question, it is evident that a host of actors bear responsibility, from the drilling managers aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig to the BP officials who oversaw their work to the government regulators who awarded the corporations blanket waivers to ignore required environmental assessments. But, as in all matters that derive from broad strokes of policy, this disaster bears the imprint of the ultimate deciders: presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

What can be determined from the information available is that the April 20 explosion occurred because BP managers were in a hurry to seal off the well so they could move the rig (which BP leased from Transocean for $500,000 per day) to another drilling location. To speed up the move, BP's managers evidently approved the risky exit procedure that led to the lethal explosion. At one level, then, responsibility can be laid at the feet of the managers involved in that decision as well as of Cameron International, the manufacturer of the rig's blowout preventer, which appears to have been defective. These managers operated in a corporate culture that favored productivity and profit over safety and environmental protection.

BP, which has boasted of its success in boosting oil production in the gulf, has a sordid history when it comes to safety. Last October it was fined $87 million by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for failing to correct safety problems discovered after a 2005 explosion that killed fifteen workers at BP's Texas City refinery—the largest such fine ever levied by OSHA. Like other firms operating in the gulf, BP has also sought a blanket exemption from requirements that it conduct an environmental impact assessment for each new offshore well it drills.

But corporate officials and their parent companies did not operate in a political vacuum. BP and its subcontractors were able to drill in this location, some forty miles off the Louisiana shore, because the government, first under Bush and then under Obama, has been keen to increase production in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Ever since it became clear, in the 1990s, that oil output at Prudhoe Bay in northern Alaska was in irreversible decline and that no other onshore location in the continental United States could provide increased levels of petroleum, the government has sought to boost output from the deepwater gulf to moderate the nation's growing dependence on imported energy. To that end, the Bush administration proposed to open up new areas for drilling, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the Outer Continental Shelf, and to facilitate the efforts of giant energy firms to exploit these resources.

Bush was never able to persuade Congress to approve drilling in ANWR. But he did succeed in expanding drilling in other areas, including the deepwater gulf. Bush's principal instrument in these endeavors was the Minerals Management Service (MMS), the branch of the Interior Department responsible for providing leases for offshore drilling as well as collecting the fees and royalties the companies paid for operating in federal waters.

Intended largely to promote offshore drilling, the MMS was also responsible for ensuring that all such operations complied with the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act and other environmental laws. Full adherence to these laws could have slowed the expansion of drilling or blocked it altogether—but the MMS provided the leases without making the companies, including BP, obtain required environmental permits. MMS officials routinely ignored warnings from the agency's own scientists and from those at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that this sort of deepwater drilling posed a risk of massive oil spills with devastating consequences for protected marine species. Such preferential treatment for industry is hardly surprising, given the cozy—in some cases criminal—relationships that developed between senior MMS officials and their corporate counterparts.

Enter the Obama administration. Obama has been deeply critical of his predecessor's environmental policies and has promised to place fresh emphasis on developing alternative fuels—but he has shown little inclination to reverse the nation's growing reliance on offshore oil. As it did under Bush, the MMS has continued to award leases for offshore drilling in the gulf without requiring environmental scrutiny. In October the agency gave Shell Oil preliminary approval to drill in the Beaufort Sea, off Alaska's northern coast, despite warnings from scientists within and outside the agency that any spill in these far northern waters would have catastrophic environmental repercussions. Then on March 30—three weeks before the Deepwater Horizon disaster—Obama announced he would permit offshore drilling in additional areas of the gulf as well as in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas above Alaska and off the East Coast. Although Obama supposedly took this step in part to win support from Senate Republicans for the proposed climate-protection bill, it also reflects his belief, inherited from Bush, that the United States must produce more domestic oil to reduce its reliance on imports.

Since the gulf explosion, the administration has taken several halfhearted steps to slow the drive for increased deepwater drilling. It placed a moratorium on awarding new offshore leases, although the MMS reportedly has continued to give these away. It has also announced plans to break up the MMS into several independent agencies—with separate bodies responsible for awarding leases, collecting revenues and providing environmental oversight—in order to prevent a future conflict of interest. All these bodies, however, will remain within the Interior Department, and it is unclear if the White House really has the will to curb risky offshore drilling.

What can we learn from all this? It should be obvious that merely tightening safety and environmental procedures on offshore rigs will not be enough to prevent further environmental ruin. As long as the major energy firms continue to rest future profits on wells in ever-deeper waters—and government regulators collude with them in this—more catastrophes are inevitable. Clearly, it's policy that has to change, not its implementation.

To prevent more ecological disasters, President Obama has to acknowledge the fallacy of his offshore-drilling plan and place a moratorium on all drilling in the Arctic, the Atlantic and new areas of the Gulf of Mexico while the government and industry determine whether it will ever be safe to operate in these waters. As BP's inept response to the crisis shows, the giant firms lack the capacity to control leaks in deep offshore waters, and so any approval of new wells in the gulf must be contingent on developing safety and cleanup technologies equal to the task. In the meantime, every effort must be made to speed the introduction of alternative fuels that pose fewer threats to the natural environment.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/10060...llution_pipe_2

BP successfully cuts leaking oil well pipe: official

Thu Jun 3, 11:45 AM

WASHINGTON (AFP) - BP has successfully cut an underwater wellpipe using hydraulic shears and will now work to place a containment cap over the leak, the senior US official overseeing the response said Thursday.

"For the first time in a couple of days I have some good news for you -- we just cut the riser pipe off the lower marine package," Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen told reporters, calling the operation "a significant step forward."

So far, BP has met failure at every turn in its attempts to stem the flow of oil from the spewing well a mile down in the Gulf.

Some 20 million gallons of crude have gushed into the sea since April, after an explosion rocked the Deepwater Horizon rig, killing 11 workers and sending the platform sinking to the sea floor.

Shears were used to cut off the pipe at the top of the blow-out preventer stack after an attempt to saw off the riser with a precision diamond saw failed on Wednesday when the saw got stuck in the pipe.

"We don't have as clean a cut but we do have a cut now... The challenge now is to seat that containment cap over it," Allen said.

Once the containment cap is set and sealed, oil will be sucked up a riser pipe from the unit to a drillship on the surface.

Because the cut is irregular, a "very, very solid seal" will be placed around the containment cap to reduce the amount of oil that could leak out of the device once it is set up, Allen said.

"This is an irregular cut, so it will be a little more challenging to get the seal all around," said Allen.

The flow of oil from the pipe was expected to increase between the time the pipe was cut and the cap is placed over the leaking well head, but Allen had no immediate information on whether the flow had already increased.

I just checked this out on Snopes.
It's true. :p

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i just checked this out on snopes.
It's true.

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rofl!!!:d

BP oil spill update - cap placement success! wait and see if it worked [VIDEO]
June 03, 2010 10:17 PM EDT

Click on the link to see the video. Photo is attached...pretty awesome. I pray this will slow the leak enough that cleanup can get ahead of it soon.

http://news.gather.com/viewArticle.a...81474978277222

BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico

Breaking news update about the BP oil spill. BP has just placed the cap over the cut that they made in the gushing oil well. So far, the effectiveness is not known. However, the procedure has been completed just minutes ago.

Unfortunately, the cut is ragged, so the cap will not fit as snuggly as BP had hoped. The video of the procedure showed dramatic footage of robots wrestling the cap into place of the jagged cut.

One reason the cut is so jagged is because the diamond saw got stuck, so BP had to use giant shears to make the cut, which could not make as clean of a cut as the saw would have been able to make.

There is no way to know how effective the cap and cut procedure was until the cap is completely fitted. Officials do believe that oil will continue to flow into the Gulf of Mexico. However, the hope is that the flow will be significantly reduced.

Also, BP has pledged to bring the Gulf Coast back to its original state. The hope to completely stop the oil flow is a relief well that will not be finished until August at the earliest.

So far, BP has received a $69 million bill from the Federal Government according to the White House. Obviously, this is the first of many bills the company will receive regarding this spill and cleanup effort.

I sure hope this is the break we’ve all been waiting for in this frustrating oil spill. Hopefully this cut-and-cap will end up significantly reducing the oil flow. BP will be in the area for years if not decades fulfilling their promise to completely restore the area. I’m even sure they can completely restore some things. Some of the delicate coast line may be forever lost.

The video below shows more about the cap and cut.