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Now What?

Posted May 29, 2010 by Kris DiGiovanni

Updated May 29, 2010 at 07:08 PM

BP has just about run out of ideas after their last ditch efforts, aka, Top Kill and The Junk Shot, failed to stop the torrent of crude escaping into the Gulf of Mexico.  After more than a month of making it up as they go, the score is BP- zero, Oil Leak – eleventy billion (that’s gallons, give or take a few.)

BP’s little “oopsie” is truly the gift that keeps on giving.  Not only has it permanently screwed up the ecology of thousands of square miles of ocean, marshland, and beaches.  It’s swelled the already huge list of America’s unemployed with thousands of fishermen, shrimpers, others who depend on the Gulf for their livelihood.  It’s killed tourism dead in a dozen states, and taken away annual income they need to survive.  And - it took Florida’s pristine beaches completely out of the running for the “Best Beach” competition, because the judge just assumed they’d be covered in tar balls by now. 

BP’s CEO at first characterized the spill as “tiny” and claimed the ecological impact would be “very, very modest.”  Since then, a massive number of BP employees and local “draftees” have worked around the clock to corral the crude and siphon it up.  Nearly 20% of the entire Gulf has been closed to fishing.  Huge plumes of oily muck that stretch from the sea floor all the way to the surface have been discovered.  Endangered species like Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtles have washed up dead in alarming numbers.  Thousands of volunteers have put their lives on hold to scrub seabirds, and soak up oily ooze. 

Three weeks after his previous assessment, BP CEO Tony Howard finally admitted the spill was indeed an “environmental catastrophe.”  But he and his company still have no idea how to fix it.  After spending 40 days and and estimated $390 million to stop the leak, BP’s COO, Doug Suttles told the press, “I don’t think the amount of oil coming out has changed.”   Yay - just what we wanted to hear.

At times like this, we naturally look to our county’s leadership.  And although the US government has no expertise, no trained responders, nor any agency charged with taking over failed oil well disasters from the companies that caused them, there is a growing demand for Obama’s administration to assume the job to “save us.”  Ironically, the loudest shouts are being heard from traditional anti-big government advocates, who have now dubbed the disaster, “Obama’s Katrina,”  and are chastising him for not stepping in. 

They forget that the groundwork for “oil-pocolypse” was laid during the Bush administration.  Bush urged congress to increase offshore drilling, and to open up the Alaskan Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.   His Energy Policy Act of 2005 was designed to streamline oil and gas development, and allowed companies to ignore provisions in 1969 National Environmental Policy Act related to human health and the cumulative environmental effects of oil and gas drilling.  However not only did side-stepping these provisions not speed up drilling, The GAO reported that “Increased Permitting Activity Has Lessened the Bureau of Land Management’s Ability to Meet Its Environmental Protection Responsibilities.”  Per the Minerals and Management Service, in every year during the Bush administration, offshore producers released an average of 6,555 barrels of oil a year, 64% more than the previous annual average.

Lax oversight, and a “drill baby drill” mentality made the Deepwater Horizon not just a possibility, but a probability.  Congress forgot that just like Three Mile Island, energy-related disasters may happen only rarely, but it only takes one to totally mess things up.  Oil has been spilling into the fragile Gulf ecosystem at the rate of 12,000 to 19,000 barrels per day for the past forty days.  That’s over 30 million gallons already.

Congress must enact much stricter controls related to the safety of offshore drilling.  For example, Canada requires a relief well to be drilled at the same time as a new well.  BP has started its relief well, but it will takes weeks more to complete.  While we can’t do much except try to recover from this calamity, we can make it much less likely that it never happens again.


The author can be reached at KrisDiGiovanni at gmail dot com or on FaceBook.