Greg Palast: The 'other' spill BP will be keeping quiet

[highplainsdem]

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/91000

The 'other' spill BP will be keeping quiet

Monday 31 May 2010
Greg Palast

With the Gulf Coast dying of oil poisoning, there's no space in the press for British Petroleum's most recent spill.

Just last week over 100,000 gallons were lost at its Alaska pipeline operation. A hundred thousand used to be a lot. It still is.

Last Tuesday, Pump Station 9, at Delta Junction on the 800-mile pipeline, busted. Thousands of barrels began spewing an explosive cocktail of hydrocarbons after "procedures weren't properly implemented" by BP operators, say state inspectors.

"Procedures weren't properly implemented" is, it seems, BP's company motto.

Few in the US know that BP owns the controlling stake in the transalaska pipeline. Unlike with the Deepwater Horizon rig, BP keeps its name off the big pipe.

There's another reason for the company to keep its name off the pipe - its management of it stinks. The pipe is corroded, undermanned and "basic maintenance" is a term BP has never heard of.

How does BP get away with it? The same way the Godfather got away with it, bad things happen to folks who blow the whistle. BP has a habit of hunting down and destroying the careers of those who warn of pipeline problems.

-snip-

I don't want readers to think BP is a British marauder unconcerned about the US.

The company is deeply involved in US democracy. Bob Malone, until last year the chairman of BP America, was also Alaska State co-chairman of the Bush re-election campaign.

Bush, in turn, was so impressed with BP's care of Alaska's environment that he pushed again to open the state's Arctic wildlife refuge to drilling by the BP consortium.

You can go to Alaska today and see for yourself the evidence of BP's care of the wilderness. You can smell it - the crude oil is still on the beaches from the Exxon Valdez spill.

Exxon took all the blame for the spill because it was dumb enough to have the company's name on the ship.

But it was BP's pipeline managers who filed reports that oil spill containment equipment was sitting right at the site of the grounding near Bligh Island.

However the reports were bogus - the equipment wasn't there and so the beaches were poisoned. At the time, our investigators uncovered four-volumes worth of faked safety reports and concluded that BP was at least as culpable as Exxon for the 1,200 miles of oil-destroyed coastline.

-snip-

[willing dwarf]

1. Maybe we should be looking at BP as terrorists

[chimpymustgo]

4. They are terrorists. We should hunt them down.

[troubledamerican]

7. + 1

[BrklynLiberal]

10. I agree, and said so last week. their assets should all be seized, the corporate offiers should be

sent to Gitmo.

How is what they have done NOT a threat to our national security?????

[readmoreoften]

16. +1

[Uncle Joe]

2. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, highplainsdem.

[flyarm]

3. BP runs a "TIGHT SHIP" so it seems!! And where is our government on this?

Deepwater Horizon survivors allege they were kept in seclusion after rig explosion, coerced into signing legal waivers

According to two surviving crew members of the Deepwater Horizon, oil workers from the rig were held in seclusion on the open water for up to two days after the April 20 explosion, while attorneys attempted to convince them to sign legal documents stating that they were unharmed by the incident. The men claim that they were forbidden from having any contact with concerned loved ones during that time, and were told they would not be able to go home until they signed the documents they were presented with.
Stephen Davis, a seven-year veteran of drilling-rig work from San Antonio, told The Guardian's Suzanne Goldenberg today that he was held on a boat for 36 to 40 hours after diving into the Gulf from the burning rig and swimming to safety. Once on a crew boat, Davis said, he and the others were denied access to satellite phones or radio to get in touch with their families, many of whom were frantic to find out whether or not they were OK.
Davis' attorney told Goldenberg that while on the boat, his client and the others were told to sign the statements presented to them by attorneys for Transocean — the firm that owned the Deepwater Horizon — or they wouldn't be allowed to go home. After being awake for 50 harrowing hours, Davis caved and signed the papers. He said most of the others did as well.
Davis' story seems to be backed up by a similar account given to NPRby another Deepwater Horizon crewmember earlier in the month. Christopher Choy, a roustabout on the rig, said that the lawyers gathered the survivors in the galley of a boat and said, "'You need to sign these. Nobody's getting off here until we get one from everybody.' ... At the bottom, it said something about, like, you know, this can be used as evidence in court and all that. I told them, 'I'm not signing it.' "
Choy said that once he was finally allowed to get off the boat, he was shuttled to a hotel, where he met up with his wife. At the hotel, representatives from Transocean confronted him again and badgered him to sign the statement. Exhausted, traumatized and desperate to go home, Choy said that he finally relented and signed.
Choy's lawyer, Steve Gordon, is incensed over what transpired in the hours after the explosion. He, along with other attorneys for Deepwater Horizon workers, is trying to get the documents voided by the courts.
"It's absurd. It's unacceptable, and it's irresponsible," Gordon told NPR.
— Brett Michael Dykes is a national affairs writer for Yahoo! News.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20100521/sc_ynews/ynews_sc2191

[femrap]

11. Where is our gov't?

Is that the question?

Well, our gov't is sucking Corporate dick. That's where our gov't is.

[TBF]

18. rec this post.

business as usual...

[truth2power]

17. A question I had when first hearing of this: kept in seclusion; coerced

into signing waivers.

If you're coerced into signing a document, it's null and void. Yes?

[amborin]

5. K&R

[Blue_In_AK]

6. The only saving grace on the North Slope spill

is that it was contained, but what Greg Palast says about the condition of the Pipeline is absolutely correct. BP is continually cutting corners up here, and owes the state a lot of money in fines that it's trying to wiggle out of. And they definitely should have taken more heat over the EXXON VALDEZ spill because the cleanup was presumably Alyeska's (the consortium) responsibility and they were totally unprepared.

According to many, the volume of oil spilled in the Prince William Sound disaster has also been vastly underestimated. 11 million gallons is the figure that's always used in the media, but the tanker was carrying more than 50 million gallons of oil, 17 million gallons were recovered, which would make the amount of oil remaining closer to 30 million than 11 million.

[wildbilln864]

8. k&r! nt

[Quantess]

9. evening kick

[CaliforniaPeggy]

12. BP needs to be hunted down and made to pay for their criminal

behavior.

Holy God.

Dirty scum-sucking bottom-dwelling bastards.

:kick:

[Lorien]

13. Yep, but now DU and the media have new baubles to play with

so the death of the Gulf will be ignored.

[Angry Dragon]

14. Terrorists and murders

The common man or woman on the street would never see the light of day again if they did what bp does. I would like someone in the government why this is okay.

Unequal justice is not justice.

[SemperEadem]

15. BP's license to do business in the US needs to be yanked

they need to be shut down. They're too triflin' to be a responsible company.

[Blue_Tires]

19. ttt

[uponit7771]

20. "..The company is deeply involved in US democracy..." How literal should we take this?

[Karenina]

21. Wonder WHOSE planes are being used to dispense that COREXIT poison?

The PAST is prologue. Theinhg s are QUITE DIFFERENT with BP in Scotland. WHY???

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x470575