Gulf Blowout shenanigans : reckless cement etc

Blowout Petroleum "BP" is trying to CONTAMINATE scientists capable of lending their expertise to prosecutors in the Gulf fiasco. And that's no typo. They already seem to have at least one federal judge in their pocket:


[rawstory.com]

and didja hear about BP loopholing toxic disposal rules by injecting their filth as hypertoxic "snot" into the fatal well? reeeaaallllly gross.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/21/2010 12:16PM by Uncle Mort.

While concerns over the impact of chemical dispersants continue to grow, Gulf Coast residents are outraged by a recent announcement that the $20 billion government-administered claim fund will subtract money cleanup workers earn by working for the cleanup effort from any future claims. Fund administrator Kenneth Feinberg says the ruling will apply to anyone who participates in the Vessels of Opportunity program, which has employed hundreds of Gulf Coast residents left out of work because of the spill. It’s seen as an effort to limit the number of lawsuits against BP.

amy goodman/democracy now

...there goes the local workforce. screw em they vote republican or worse anyway. bring on the undocumented mexican navy!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/22/2010 09:23PM by Uncle Mort.

KENNER, LA. -- Long before an eruption of gas turned the Deepwater Horizon oil rig into a fireball, an alarm system designed to alert the crew and prevent combustible gases from reaching potential sources of ignition had been deliberately disabled, the former chief electronics technician on the rig testified Friday.

Michael Williams, an ex-Marine who survived the April 20 conflagration by jumping from the burning rig, told a federal panel probing the disaster that the alarm system was one of an array of critical systems that had been functioning unreliably in the run-up to the blowout. Williams told the panel that he understood that the rig had been operating with the gas alarm system in "inhibited" mode for a year to prevent false alarms from disturbing the crew.

He said the explanation he got was that the leadership of the rig did not want crew members needlessly awakened in the middle of the night.

If the safety system was disabled, it would not have been a unique event. Records of federal enforcement actions reviewed by The Washington Post show that, in case after case, rig operators paid fines for allegedly bypassing safety systems that could impede routine operations. Computers used to monitor and control drilling operations intermittently froze, to the point that the problem became known as "the blue screen of death," Williams said. Despite attempted repairs, the issue remained unresolved at the time of the blowout, Williams said.

Earlier in the drilling operation, one of the panels that controlled the blowout preventer -- the last line of defense against a gusher -- had been placed in bypass mode to work around a malfunction, Williams said. Williams said a colleague told him that an inspection of the rig in the spring, shortly before the disaster, found extensive maintenance problems. The colleague said "that we were going to be in the shipyard a lot longer than anticipated because the rig was in very bad condition," Williams said. The rig was owned by Transocean, the company that employs Williams, and was operating under contract to BP.

An attorney for BP, Richard Godfrey, added to the picture by reading from a September 2009 BP audit during his questioning of Williams. He read a litany of findings that included problems with bilge pumps, cooling pumps, an alarm system related to the rig's hospital and an emergency shutdown panel on the bridge. A fire and alarm system was found to have its "override active," Godfrey said.

Altogether, the September audit identified 390 issues that needed addressing, Godfrey said.

washington post



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/23/2010 12:27PM by inspector hound.

Criminal: A person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation.
- Howard Scott

ok later for the braceros, they might talk to the press about exploding water, or want to get paid even. BP prefers modern slaves--aka prison inmates-- for toxic cleanup (much like during the great floods of the 1920s) while locals are losing their livelihoods:

In the first few days after BP's Deepwater Horizon wellhead exploded, spewing crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, cleanup workers could be seen on Louisiana beaches wearing scarlet pants and white t-shirts with the words "Inmate Labor" printed in large red block letters. Coastal residents, many of whom had just seen their livelihoods disappear, expressed outrage at community meetings; why should BP be using cheap or free prison labor when so many people were desperate for work? The outfits disappeared overnight.

Work crews in Grand Isle, Louisiana, still stand out. In a region where nine out of ten residents are white, the cleanup workers are almost exclusively African-American men. The racialized nature of the cleanup is so conspicuous that Ben Jealous, the president of the NAACP, sent a public letter to BP CEO Tony Hayward on July 9, demanding to know why black people were over-represented in "the most physically difficult, lowest paying jobs, with the most significant exposure to toxins."

Hiring prison labor is more than a way for BP to save money while cleaning up the biggest oil spill in history. By tapping into the inmate workforce, the company and its subcontractors get workers who are not only cheap but easily silencedβ€”and they get lucrative tax write-offs in the process.

Known to some as "the inmate state," Louisiana has the highest rate of incarceration of any other state in the country. Seventy percent of its 39,000 inmates are African-American men....

THE NATION



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/26/2010 08:14AM by Uncle Mort.

Gulf fiasco reveals two govts that don't play together well. Civilians lose. Coast Guard sez screw the EPA order, pour the toxic dispersant because the culprit running the crime scene wants to conceal evidence:

[rawstory.com]

no oily sheen, no problem right?

right?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/01/2010 11:48AM by Uncle Mort.

Is this another movie where the doomsday clock keeps ticking in the background while everybody celebrates Top Kill?



"...Oil industry expert Bob Cavnar, however, is skeptical of BP's rosy evaluation.

"You don't know if that well's actually killed down below," he told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Tuesday. "Because of all the damage down below, it could be flowing into another zone, it could be flowing some place else into the substrata. The only way you kill this well is with the relief well from down below."

When Olbermann asked whether we can be sure that the underwater video feed is legitimate, Cavnar laughed and replied, "It's very interesting. I got up early this morning . ... I was very concerned about this connector I've been talking about for the last couple of weeks. They had a good shot of that so I watched that for a while ... came back about 30 minutes later, and it replayed. And I noticed that the time was an hour and a half behind the current time. So they were relooping some of the video feed, and it was not live."

"I always wondered if they want you to see what they want you to see," Cavnar suggested, "and sometimes if they have something else going on they just loop the tape for a while before they go back to live."

Suspicions that BP is looping its video feed have been raised repeatedly on various message boards over the last couple of months. One blogger reported as early as May 23 seeing the live feed freeze just as a major gush of oil erupted, followed after a page reload by a much clearer view with "no more black chaos."

In addition to voicing concerns about the video, Cavnar had questions about why BP has spent the last several weeks undertaking other operations, like the "top kill," rather than completing the drilling of a relief well to provide a permanent solution to the leak.

"This is the one thing I just don't understand," he told Olbermann. "This deepest relief well is only four feet from the intercept point. .. They're right there and they've lost three weeks of operations. ... Had they just kept going, I think they could have already had the well killed instead of doing all this nonsense from the top."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/04/2010 11:27AM by inspector hound.

Here's a little bit of good news. The Coast Guard says that BP is now catching up to 630,000 gallons of oil a day.
The bad news is that they're capturing it with ducks.

Another big story buried in the weekend snooz editions: Top Kill not enough. The Coast Guard chief "insisted" but but but, still the RELIEF WELL was delayed. Govt not really in charge apparently. and BP played us cheap again as they continue to control their own CRIME SCENE.


Last week, BP plugged up the ruptured oil well from the top with mud and cement, and for a while, it appeared that the relief well that BP has been drilling 2 1/2 miles under the sea all summer long in an effort to seal up the leak from the bottom might not be necessary after all. But Allen dashed those hopes after scientists conducted pressure tests on Thursday.

Scientists had hoped that the cement pumped in from the top had plugged the gap between the well's inner pipe and its outer casing. The pressure tests showed some cement was in that gap, but officials don't know enough about what's there - or how much of it - to trust that there is a permanent seal, said Allen, who has repeatedly insisted on an "overabundance of caution" when it comes to plugging the well.

washingnews post



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2010 08:45AM by Uncle Mort.

US Govt lies to shield BP again: contrary to claims, NOAA scientists NEVER REVIEWED and in fact THEY DISAPPROVE the smiley-face unbelievable oil dispersal report.

[www.huffingtonpost.com]

[videocafe.crooksandliars.com]

Up the food chain it goes. But the Government is NOT EVEN TESTING for heavy metal, even as Mississippi lifts ban on commercial fishing:


Activist: Gulf fishermen being held responsible for toxic seafood

By Daniel Tencer
Saturday, August 21st, 2010 -- 9:12 pm


Federal government admits not testing for arsenic, mercury or other toxic heavy metals in seafood

The US government, and even President Obama himself, have said that Gulf seafood is safe to eat in the wake of the massive BP oil spill.

But an admission from the federal government that it hasn't been testing Gulf seafood for toxic heavy metals, and news that fishermen are being forced to sign waivers making them liable for toxins in their catch, suggest not everyone is convinced of the safety of Gulf seafood.

Louisiana fishermen's activist Kindra Arnesen says dock owners are asking fishermen to sign waivers that put the full responsibility for toxins found in the catch on the fishermen themselves.

"This liability cannot fall with our fishermen," she said in a video posted to blogger Alexander Higgins' Web site.

Arnesen's claim comes as Louisiana prepares to allow shrimping on the coast to resume this Monday. A news report from IPS says many shrimpers in the Gulf are simply unwilling to go back in the water, due to fears their catch could be contaminated.

Mississippi commercial shrimper James "Catfish" Miller told IPS there's only one place on the state's coast where oysters can be caught, "and there is oil and dispersants all over the top of it."

Mississippi lifted its ban on commercial fishing in the Gulf earlier this month, but Miller and others refuse to start fishing again. Miller showed IPS a simple test to prove the waters are still contaminated: He sank an absorbent rag into the water, and minutes later pulled it up. "The rags were covered in a brown oily substance that the fishermen identified as a mix of BP's crude oil and toxic dispersants," IPS reports.

NO TESTING FOR TOXIC HEAVY METALS

In House hearings this week, federal government officials indicated they have not been testing for heavy metals known to exist in crude oil, some of which can be toxic to humans and are believed to be able to build up in marine life after an oil spill.

During questioning by House Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA), FDA Acting Deputy Director Donald Kraemer said his agency isn't monitoring for the presence of heavy metals such as arsenic and mercury in Gulf seafood. He suggested that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration may be handling that area.

But NOAA senior scientist Bill Lehr didn't have an answer for Markey as to whether the NOAA is monitoring for heavy metals, and said only, "We'll get back to you with an answer on that."

"It's my understanding that compounds like mercury, arsenic and other heavy metals that are present in crude oil have the ability to accumulate in the tissues of fish in levels that may cause harm particularly to pregnant women and children," Markey said.

But the FDA's Kraemer told Markey that his agency "does not expect to see an increase" in heavy toxins from the spill.

That comment befuddled some oil spill observers and scientists. As Washington's Blog notes, crude oil contains not only heavy metals, but organic compounds such as benzene and toluene, which are toxic to humans.

An Associated Press report earlier this month reported that a study on crab larvae in the Gulf concluded that oil from the spill is making its way into the food chain:

The government said last week that three-quarters of the spilled oil has been removed or naturally dissipated from the water. But the crab larvae discovery was an ominous sign that crude had already infiltrated the Gulf's vast food web -- and could affect it for years to come.

"It would suggest the oil has reached a position where it can start moving up the food chain instead of just hanging in the water," said Bob Thomas, a biologist at Loyola University in New Orleans. "Something likely will eat those oiled larvae ... and then that animal will be eaten by something bigger and so on."

Tiny creatures might take in such low amounts of oil that they could survive, Thomas said. But those at the top of the chain, such as dolphins and tuna, could get fatal "megadoses."

"In my 42 years of studying crabs I've never seen this," [biologist Harriet] Perry said.
'CULTURAL GENOCIDE'

Kindra Arnesen, who works with the Cultural Heritage Society of Louisiana, is warning of a "cultural genocide" of the Gulf Coast fishing industry if the government doesn't start testing for heavy metals in seafood.

"There's going to be a cultural genocide of they don't test the seafood and make sure that it's safe," she said. "Not only to protect our fishermen, but hello, what about the consumer? ... We pride ourselves on bringing fresh, uncontaminated seafood to the market for the consumer to eat."

The concerns of fisherman and scientists alike seem to contradict the positive tone the federal government has taken with respect to oil in the Gulf.

"Let me be clear: Seafood from the Gulf … is safe to eat,” President Obama recently said at an appearance in Theodore, Alabama.

It's "important for consumers who ... to know that their food is safe, but it’s also important for the fishermen and processors, who need to be able to sell their products with confidence,” Obama said.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/21/2010 07:35PM by Uncle Mort.

STEP BACK SIR AND GET YOUR HANDS OUT OF THAT SAND. Digging in the sand is now ILLEGAL because BP controls the US coastline along the Gulf. These reporters found oil within a kid's reach, but... It's about "archaeology" doncha know. Better than fiction, less probable:


Building sand castles on Florida’s beaches is illegal, feds tell oil-hunting reporter

By Stephen C. Webster
Sunday, September 19th, 2010 -- 7:40 pm

Ever go to the beach and not think of slapping together a sand castle? And who doesn't enjoy the feeling of wet, warm sand between her toes?

According to federal authorities who recently intercepted an oil-hunting reporter on a Florida beach, those activities have been deemed "illegal."

The officers' legal revelation (which is not actually true) came as something of a surprise to Dan Thomas, reporter for WEAR ABC 3 in Pensacola, Florida, who was visiting the Gulf Islands National Seashore for a special report.

Shovel men at the ready, it did not take Thomas long to uncover splotches of oily crude less than a foot below the surface. Within seconds, his report had shown that BP's cleanup efforts, which have been limited to just the top six inches of sand in most cases, are not entirely effective.

That's when a representative of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service showed up, demanding he produce a permit to use shovels on a public beach.
\"Are you digging for oil product?" the official asked. When Thomas did not immediately confirm his intentions, the man threatened to call law enforcement and advised the journalist to move down the beach.

Moments later, an officer of the National Parks Service was demanding the reporter identify himself, insisting over and over, "you can't dig."

"So, no sand castles?" Thomas asked. "None of that, huh?"

"You're right," the officer replied.

Black tape

BP has since August been deploying its so-called "Sand Shark" machine to beaches around Florida and Louisiana. The device is capable of burrowing 18-inches into the sand and sifting oil particles out at the rate of dozens of tons per hour.

However, the Department of the Interior stands in the way, as digging deeper than six inches requires a waiver from the agency.

"It's an archaeological issue. [...] The cleanup might disturb cultural sites protected by the national historic preservation act," a BP spokesman told the Pensacola News Journal.

But even at 18 inches, that's not enough. Oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster has permeated beaches and the Gulf seabed.

"Judy Haner, a marine scientist with The Nature Conservancy, favors deep-cleaning because the sand is home to small creatures like sand fleas, which form the base of the coastal food chain," the Associated Press reported. "They're the ones exposed to (oil) every tidal cycle, and they're living in the sand," she said. "It's the bioaccumulation up the chain that is problematic."

BP has previously been accused of burying oil-coated beaches with clean sand shipped in from other locations, but conclusive evidence proving the claim have yet to surface.

Despite what officers told the ABC reporter, it is not illegal to build sand castles on beaches in Florida -- but you're still likely to get the runaround if you've got a camera crew in-tow.

And finally, despite the presence of oil down below, many of Florida's beaches are mostly clean, at least on the surface.

Retired Coast Guard admiral Thad Allen, the US pointman for the response to the disaster, said Sunday that the operation to intersect and cement BP's blown out oil well had been completed successfully.

"Additional regulatory steps will be undertaken but we can now state, definitively, that the Macondo well poses no continuing threat to the Gulf of Mexico," he said.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/2010 10:11AM by Uncle Mort.

WHERE THE HELL DID PUERTO GET MIXED UP WITH ALL OF YOUR AMERICAN CRAP . IF YOU DONT LIKE IT F... OFF . WE ALL GO THERE TO RELAX . YOU PEOPLE AND I MEAN YOU PEOPLE . SHUT THE F... UP . GO BACK TO THE U. S. . I LOVE PUERTO ,AND I LIVE IN FLORIDA , LETS KEEP IT PUERTO . J.S.

I AM supporting Puerto... by drawing potential tourists away from Florida.

Bad cement and both bp and hallicheneyburton knew it from tests, sez Prez Commission on blowout:

[www.rawstory.com]

NPR story on same, Halliburton admits it did not test reformulated cement mix:

[www.npr.org]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/2010 08:11AM by Uncle Mort.

Why is this thread still going on the Puerto Escondido board? Move it to parts unknown, and stop the silly clutter every time Uncle Mort gets a cute idea.

Thats what you get when the uncensored button is on. Silly changes in the thread title seem to be standard.

No problemo does not exist in the Spanish language,

No hay problema ya se que No problemo tiene problema, estoy burlando.

The Gulf economy is being bankrupted, but a 2 billion dollar profit is being posted this quarter for BP despite--or in some ways because of-- gulf problems:

[www.rawstory.com]

Govt coverup, improper testing of Gulf shrimp. Toxic, Better avoid. At least remove shells first.

[www.rawstory.com]