Booms Should Have Saved the Marshes. But BP & the Coast Guard are Fucking Up...

[Junkdrawer]

They're putting out the oil containment booms WRONG. This is a PR exercise, not a serious attempt to collect the oil...

Watch here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnTPOx-XCBQ

Video Forum thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x466903

[Swamp Rat]

1. They are ALL fucking up while we drown in oil down here.

[unhappycamper]

3. Ouch.

How are things where you are Swampy?

I'm not looking for this mess to hit the Gulf Stream.

:hi:

[Swamp Rat]

4. Well, oil is washing up in a lot of unexpected places

probably because it is traveling here as giant submerged bubbles. It's everywhere.

This is a life changer for us. I've seen the marshes.... we are so fucked.

I'm so angry I decided to destroy my car.

[unhappycamper]

5. Hang in there Buddy.

It would be nice if Obama actually took control of the operation and told scientists to do what they do best.

It's nice to see our congresscritters arguing about a $75 million dollar liability cap from the 1850s. :sarcasm:

And it's nice that BP teamed up with the Coast Guard and are preventing news organizations from taking pics and videos of what you must be seeing and smelling. I hate to say it, but the fix is in. BOHICA.

Yea, I think you're correct - we're fucked. :(

[Swamp Rat]

7. They are preventing local scientists from investigating too.

1. By literally blocking people from going to the visibly worst areas
2. By not funding and utilizing local scientists/environ. assessors to examine the water column, take samples, etc.
3. Even the guys I know with hazmat training/cert. are on standby (for a fucking month now?)

Just a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a cut from our military budget would be enough to equip me an many others with boats, Secchi disks, spectrometers, laptops, sampling gear, Trimble GPS, etc.

Jesus fucking christ! I nearly have a PhD in this field, and its my OWN GODDAMN BACK YARD, yet I cannot do a fucking thing about it!!!

[Junkdrawer]

9. Swampy, your post needs to be an OP....

Who is blocking them? How? Under what authority?

[Swamp Rat]

11. I cannot

Sorry, I will not quote anyone, and I cannot provide 'evidence'.

I hope that it will all come out soon.

edit: But you are definitely correct about the boom deployment. They do not know what they fuck they are doing and/or they really don't give a shit. I am certain BP is only trying to make themselves look good while CEOs and major shareholders try to figure out how to escape future criminal prosecution.

[Swamp Rat]

12. OK, the NY Times is picking up on some of this, albeit late:

(snip)

"Mr. Steiner, long critical of offshore drilling, has fought past battles involving NOAA, including one in which he was stripped of a small university grant financed by the agency. He later resigned from the University of Alaska at Anchorage and now consults worldwide on oil-spill prevention and response.

Oceanographers have also criticized the Obama administration over its reluctance to force BP, the oil company responsible for the spill, to permit an accurate calculation of the flow rate from the undersea well. The company has refused to permit scientists to send equipment to the ocean floor that would establish the rate with high accuracy.

Ian MacDonald of Florida State University, an oceanographer who was among the first to question the official estimate of 210,000 gallons a day, said he had come to the conclusion that the oil company was bent on obstructing any accurate calculation. “They want to hide the body,” he said."

(snip)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/20/science/earth/20noaa.html

[marions ghost]

24. yep

"they want to hide the body." :grr: So true.

I know what you are going through in frustration, Swampy. I have 4 family members in marine science (the closest one to you is in Gainesville FL). The rest of the family is very coastally oriented. Everyone is watching this unfold in horror.

It is so awful. America might as well be binding and gagging the scientists. Shoot the Messenger mentality. Stay cool and sieze the opportunity to make a serious contribution. Scientists are going to have to come out of the woodwork and speak eventually. And the data will speak.

I am so sorry. :cry: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown:

Keep us posted as much as you can.

[Swamp Rat]

36. Another colleague was just fired for telling BP officials they are doing things wrong on site

FUCKING CRIMINALS!!! LOCK THEM UP AND THROW AWAY THE GODDAMN KEY!!!

:grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr:

[Karenina]

37. With SO MUCH readily available knowledge and resources

No more than a quart of oil should have ever reached the shores...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx8kMXufu3w

[amborin]

41. unbelievable!

[Bryn]

22. I feel just like you do

I am heartsick, angry, and feeling so helpless, horrified that this could happen like that. One month is way too long.

:hug:

[amborin]

33. wait 'til people realize what Corexit is:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8384953&mesg_id=8385153


and look how NOAA is still dismissing scientists' requests for accurate data:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8384228

[malaise]

34. I don't know why he's surrounded

by so many oil hacks. He'll either separate himself from these criminals or he's going down with them.

[Individualist]

25. I wish I could rec this post.

:thumbsup:

[liberal N proud]

2. K&R

[G_j]

6. K&R

[enough]

8. Fantastic job. K&R (NT)

[FLPanhandle]

10. Won't matter anyway.

I know what those booms can handle. They work great containing oil except when there are waves, tides, winds, or rain. The booms won't save anything regardless of how they are put up. It's all a PR exercise.

[FLPanhandle]

19. BTW, thanks for the video

It's needs to be on Obama's computer too.

[bullwinkle428]

21. That was my real fear - that unless you were talking about a mill pond,

or some comparably calm body of water, the booms would be extremely limited in their effectiveness. :(

[MelissaB]

13. Enlightening video.

:(

[Junkdrawer]

14. Kick

:kick:

[Junkdrawer]

35. .

[Pooka Fey]

15. K&R

[lonestarnot]

16. Nothing I have seen from either has been a serious attempt at anything but PR.

Just a standby until the next well is drilled and who knows if it won't blow too.

[Junkdrawer]

17. There's a serious attempt to keep scientists and reporters from full access...

to the damage. Fortunately, that's been as successful as all their attempts to date.

[lonestarnot]

18. Fully successful.

[blindpig]

20. They are killing us because it is profitable to do so.

By 'we' I mean humans, turtles, dolphins, life.

Kill Capitalism.

[greencharlie]

23. it's ALL a PR exercise.

the booms, the toxic chemicals that dissolve the oil into the ocean so that TV cameras can't catch oil on a beach... why didn't they burn the oil from the start? because the pictures of flames and black smoke would be bad for PR.

The secret videos... the lying about the barrels per day...

LIES, LIES, LIES...

[amborin]

46. +1000

[Agony]

26. The Oil Boom 101 video is gut wrenching...

fuck the fucking fuckers at fucking BP fuck all of them

[CrispyQ]

43. The picture of the bird is heart breaking.

I vacillate between extreme anger & sadness over this event.

[Rex]

27. Why? Why are they so flusterfucked?

Is it because they have no idea how to stop the flow or is it because of incompetence? WHY?

[blindpig]

30. It ain't incompetence.

Their only responsibility is to make money for the shareholders. Anything that puts a drag on that is dealt with, regulation is ignored or emasculated, regulators are bought.

Kill Capitalism

[TheKentuckian]

28. I don't even know what to say about all of this K&R

This is another illustration of why our folks can't be in bed with or subservient to the corporations.

[EFerrari]

29. K&R

:grr:

[amborin]

31. Palast wrote early on that BP didn't want to spend $$ on the right booms.....

[Junkdrawer]

32. I remember that. And wasn't BP in charge of the booms during the Exxon Valdez...

spill in Alaska?

http://www.chelseagreen.com/content/greg-palast-bp-lied-then-and-theyre-lying-now/

[amborin]

39. yes; BP lied and scammed then, and now; yet they're still in charge of the current catastrophe

[Greyhound]

40. K&R for more "change"...

:kick: & R

[donheld]

38. k & R

[WeDidIt]

42. The marshes were dead the instant Deep Horizon blew

Nothing could ever have been done to save them because of how deep the well is. Booms gather at the top but the undersea plumes can travel for miles and miles with nobody knowing they're even there.

On top of that, the boom equipment was nowhere near where it needed to be the instant the blowout happened and you do not have anywhere near enough trained personnel to operate them for an incident of this magnitude.

This disaster was set in motion at least eight years ago. It was just a matter of time before it happened and nothing would have altered it short of a much higher degree of regulation and requirements for preparedness for just this sort of blowout. Keep in mind, too, nobody believed this would ever happen. At least, that's what the fucks testified to when deep water drilling was first contemplated. Of course it was going to happen, but we have never had regulations in place to deal with this shit.

[mzteris]

44. mayor of Grand Isle OBJECTED to the booms!

???

". . . the mayor of Grand Isle, La., objected to the Coast Guard, saying they did not want oil containment booms used around the beach because it would be "unsightly" for beachgoers. Rear Admiral Mary Landry told Couric that they have to respect the wishes of local leaders." http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/24/earlyshow/main6513824.shtml

[Karenina]

45. Interesting! Grand Isle has just comandeered 40 BP boats!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4395387