Blame game

[Chuck52]

I just saw Jimmy Buffet interviewed at Pensacola, where he is opening a hotel come H***, high water or oil. He sounded as if he'd host an oil clean up party if it hit the beach there any more than it has. Nice to hear a bit of upbeat talk, though I guess if I was a fisherman there I might have a different response.

Here's hoping for an outcome that allows the people of the area to have a decent life.

Chuck

 

[marimus]

From the media coverage we get down here, all I hear is various people saying "this is BP's problem".

Sure, they might be responsible for it, but it aint just their problem. In fact its a problem for a whole lot of people, but the federal goverment just keeps saying "this is BP's problem".

The way I think of it, is like a fire thats burning towards you. If you just stand their and say, I didn't start the fire so its not my problem...well you get my idea I guess.

 

[dmccarty]

I see all kinds of estimates. However much it is, it sure seems likely to leave a nasty mess for a long time.

The estimates for these accidents are all over the place. I can understand not knowing how much is being spilled when a drilling rig fails. But what surprises me is that when Tanker X holding Y amount of oil sinks. There is often a range of spilled oil. :confused3: Ok, so maybe only a few tanks of the tanker ruptured in the sinking but eventually the tank walls will fail and the oil will leak.

In the current accident some of the estimates of the leak are very high. But I don't see how they are taking into account the gas. Just watching the video feed you can see gas or at least I think it is gas.

Mother Nature cleaned up ****** Hussein's Persian Gulf oil spill very quickly for the most part. Supposedly due to the heat in the area. Hopefully the same will occur in our Gulf. The one problem area was in the marshes. The oil did not clean up in the oil like it did on the beaches supposedly due to a lack of wave action. Mangrove swamps cleaned up quickly which surprised me.

Sounds like any oil that gets into the LA marshes is going to be ugly. Course from one of the satellite photos it looked like a big part of the LA boot aka marshes were gone anyway.

If BP does not get the oil flow slowed or stopped this will become one of the largest or the largest spill.

Later,
Dan

 

[tallyho8]

From the media coverage we get down here, all I hear is various people saying "this is BP's problem".

Unless I missed something I have not heard anyone say it is BP's problem. I have heard a few say it is Louisiana's problem or the Gulf Coast's problem but I believe it is almost the entire world's problem.

There are thousands of people from South Louisiana working on the problem in one way or another and I am sure many thousands more in the other Gulf states working on it.

I believe that far less than 1% of the oil has surfaced already and large amounts of it may wind up surfacing thousands of miles away years from now. No one knows the damage that will be done to the coral reefs off Florida's coast or the fishing habitats off the Atlantic coast yet. It is quite possible that effects will reach the shores of Iceland and Europe.

This could conceivably cause the extinction of some gulf species and worse yet, replace them with some others that will do irreparable harm.

This will undoubtably harm the local shrimp and fishing industries allowing foreign companies to take larger shares of the seafood market that America will not be able to retake once (if) our fishing industries recover.

This will result in less and more expensive offshore oil production with more restrictions and safety precautions which will drive up the worldwide cost of crude oil and it's byproducts. Expensive steps such as having one blow-out protector placed on top of another blow-out protector for redundancy may be taken.

The enormous cleanup effort will temporarily put more people to work while cleanup is going on then make the unemployment rolls soar when they are added to it along with all those from the coastal areas who have temporarily or permanently lost their livelihoods.

BP's stockholders surely will feel the pain from their mistakes.

 

[dave1949]

Unless I missed something I have not heard anyone say it is BP's problem. I have heard a few say it is Louisiana's problem or the Gulf Coast's problem but I believe it is almost the entire world's problem.

There are thousands of people from South Louisiana working on the problem in one way or another and I am sure many thousands more in the other Gulf states working on it.

I believe that far less than 1% of the oil has surfaced already and large amounts of it may wind up surfacing thousands of miles away years from now. No one knows the damage that will be done to the coral reefs off Florida's coast or the fishing habitats off the Atlantic coast yet. It is quite possible that effects will reach the shores of Iceland and Europe.

This could conceivably cause the extinction of some gulf species and worse yet, replace them with some others that will do irreparable harm.

This will undoubtably harm the local shrimp and fishing industries allowing foreign companies to take larger shares of the seafood market that America will not be able to retake once (if) our fishing industries recover.

This will result in less and more expensive offshore oil production with more restrictions and safety precautions which will drive up the worldwide cost of crude oil and it's byproducts. Expensive steps such as having one blow-out protector placed on top of another blow-out protector for redundancy may be taken.

The enormous cleanup effort will temporarily put more people to work while cleanup is going on then make the unemployment rolls soar when they are added to it along with all those from the coastal areas who have temporarily or permanently lost their livelihoods.

BP's stockholders surely will feel the pain from their mistakes.

Good post. Nobody really knows where the huge undersea plumes of oil will end up over time.

20 years after the Exxon Valdez spill, they can easily find oil under rocks on the shore. Same is true of the Texas beaches hit by the Ixtoc spill, there is a layer of hardened oil under the sand. It seems as if in the case of a sand beach, it's there, but more or less locked in an inert state under the sand.

I wonder how the marshes will handle it. Are the marshes silty or sandy along the ocean?

There are millions of little critters that live in the intertidal zone of an ocean beach. Many are so small they live between the grains of sand in what are called interstitial spaces. There is a lot that is unknown about how oil of different types affects various locations. We will probably suffer from that lack of knowledge.

To be rational, if offshore drilling is to be part of our future, which seems certain, we have to assume oil will escape in large quantities on occassion. We should have the studies that show the best way to deal with it for given shore types. Not like now, where the use of dispersants is being debated, or even the type of dispersant. And, while all agree it's a bad thing for the marsh, the exact knowledge of why and what will actually happen is missing to a larger extent than it should be.

To me that is the most disturbing aspect of the cleanup, they seem to be operating in a catch up mode, and are often making guesses instead of applying knowledge. I take it as a given that there will be spills, I think any rational person would. There is really no excuse for not being prepared better.

Some of those oil profits could surely have been spent to build the tools and knowledge necessary to deal with what is a predictable event. The cost would be minimal if it were done as a multi-company consortium where everyone isn't busy inventing the same wheel.
Dave.

 

[tulenutn2o]

As is typical with our Government. Every response is a knee jerk reaction with tons of finger pointing. In the end, all of average people end up paying, in one form or another. My favorite response by Obama is that he will make sure BP pays. Anyone with half a brain knows that this translation reads: The consumer is going to pay.........DEARLY!

 

[dave1949]

As is typical with our Government. Every response is a knee jerk reaction with tons of finger pointing. In the end, all of average people end up paying, in one form or another. My favorite response by Obama is that he will make sure BP pays. Anyone with half a brain knows that this translation reads: The consumer is going to pay.........DEARLY!

I agree with that, but I am not sure why you find it a problem. If consumers need a product, like oil, the cost of it has to include things like clean ups and compensation for damages and loss of income. How could it be otherwise? Where else could the money come from? That's the free market at work.

Did you notice BP is paying $2.63 billion to stockholders in dividends this June? Whatever cleanup costs get wrapped into the price of crude, they will be minor in comparison to the annual dividends of one or two years. I hope you aren't advocating nationalizing BP's US profits to pay the costs. It has a certain appeal to it, but I don't think we want to go down that path with Hugo Chavez
Dave.

 

[rekees4300]

Nobody really knows where the huge undersea plumes of oil will end up over time.

The projections are it will go around Florida, up the east coast, then out into the Atlantic.

 

[tallyho8]

The projections are it will go around Florida, up the east coast, then out into the Atlantic.

Projections are like weather forecasts.

 

[tulenutn2o]

I agree with that, but I am not sure why you find it a problem. If consumers need a product, like oil, the cost of it has to include things like clean ups and compensation for damages and loss of income. How could it be otherwise? Where else could the money come from? That's the free market at work.

Did you notice BP is paying $2.63 billion to stockholders in dividends this June? Whatever cleanup costs get wrapped into the price of crude, they will be minor in comparison to the annual dividends of one or two years. I hope you aren't advocating nationalizing BP's US profits to pay the costs. It has a certain appeal to it, but I don't think we want to go down that path with Hugo Chavez
Dave.

I'm not advocating anything. Just an observation over the years. The energy industry is one that passes on all increased cost to the consumer in the interest of paying big dividends to stockholders/ and salaries to executives. I do my part to conserve and use less. BUT! When consumers use less= 1)less taxes collected so government then raises taxes to compensate. A few years back Denver residents were asked to conserve water. They did, so well in fact that revenue from water sales was so low that they implemented a rate hike to compensate. Water is the oil of the future. We can live without oil, try living without water. I'm just a person fed up with getting fleeced at every opportunity. For the record, I think we need a whole lot LESS of government.