Even though this oil spill is a serious matter both environmentally and economically here is a brief humor break:
http://www.wimp.com/clarkedawe/Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought. Every murder perpetrated by poison, lying in wait, or any other kind of willful, deliberate, malicious, and premeditated killing; or committed in the perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate, any arson, escape, murder, kidnapping, treason, espionage, sabotage, aggravated sexual abuse or sexual abuse, child abuse, burglary, or robbery; or perpetrated as part of a pattern or practice of assault or torture against a child or children; or perpetrated from a premeditated design unlawfully and maliciously to effect the death of any human being other than him who is killed, is murder in the first degree.
§ 1115. Misconduct or neglect of ship officers
Every captain, engineer, pilot, or other person employed on any steamboat or vessel, by whose misconduct, negligence, or inattention to his duties on such vessel the life of any person is destroyed, and every owner, charterer, inspector, or other public officer, through whose fraud, neglect, connivance, misconduct, or violation of law the life of any person is destroyed, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
When the owner or charterer of any steamboat or vessel is a corporation, any executive officer of such corporation, for the time being actually charged with the control and management of the operation, equipment, or navigation of such steamboat or vessel, who has knowingly and willfully caused or allowed such fraud, neglect, connivance, misconduct, or violation of law, by which the life of any person is destroyed, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
§ 1112. Manslaughter
How Current is This?
(a) Manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without malice. It is of two kinds:
Voluntary—Upon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion.
Involuntary—In the commission of an unlawful act not amounting to a felony, or in the commission in an unlawful manner, or without due caution and circumspection, of a lawful act which might produce death.
(b) Within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States,
Whoever is guilty of voluntary manslaughter, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 15 years, or both;
Whoever is guilty of involuntary manslaughter, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 8 years, or both.
Second degree murder:
[B][/B]
Second-degree murder is ordinarily defined as 1) an intentional killing that is not premeditated or planned, nor committed in a reasonable “heat of passion” or 2) a killing caused by dangerous conduct and the offender’s obvious lack of concern for human life. Second-degree murder may best be viewed as the middle ground between first-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter
Which still comes under the heading of murder.
[QUOTE=geodude;38115]In the meantime, I hope the government pulls its head out of the sand and begins the “war against the spill” that they should have started over 60 days ago. If there is anything that BP is not doing that should be done, there is nothing stopping the US governement from stepping in and doing it themselves and simply forwarding the bills directly to BP, who would not risk losing their ongoing US franchise by not paying them.[/QUOTE]
It doesn’t sound like the government has the equipment to kill this well. I do wonder if the government could take over the kill and cleanup operations and then turn around and subcontract these operations to BP. Then the government would have control of things. Dell or other legal eagles, would this even be legally possible?
[QUOTE=geodude;38115]In the meantime, I hope the government pulls its head out of the sand and begins the “war against the spill” that they should have started over 60 days ago. If there is anything that BP is not doing that should be done, there is nothing stopping the US governement from stepping in and doing it themselves and simply forwarding the bills directly to BP, who would not risk losing their ongoing US franchise by not paying them.[/QUOTE]
It doesn’t sound like the government has the knowledge or equipment to kill this well. I do wonder if the government could take over the kill and cleanup operations and then turn around and subcontract these operations to BP. Then the government would have control of things. Dell or other legal eagles, would this even be legally possible?
[QUOTE=company man 1;38108]Blame me for that. I take full responsibility alone. Had I realized all he wanted was for me to say he was smarter than me so he’d shut up, I would have done it a month ago. Please forgive me for not confessing that he was right & I was wrong. He probably had to go… you know what when I said it. I had a lift boat captian like that once upon a time. He boodayed for days over something one time. Anyway, it ended up leading to problems & problems led to a showdown.Once I figured out what was bothering him, I just had to butter him up real good at all the meetings & give real special attention to all the little things he did every day to make our lives so much better & he’d just walk away with the biggest smile on his face knowing his ego was given proper respect in public. So once more for the record. ALcor, I salute your kinowledge. Thank you for illuminating us all under youir bright light. We pray that you do not illuminate us too much though as our tender skin may burn due to the richness of your glorious light that comes from the BRILLIANT thinking in that marvelous mind of yours. With kindest regards, CM1.[/QUOTE]
I suggested I was open minded about the events leading up to the demise of the DWH. All facts are relevant. They will surface. I take no glory in the fate of the DWH and its crew. But, unlike many of you who presumed you had all the facts to assassinate BP, you have reconsidered some of the detail. Having spent such a long time defending my opinion, whilst enduring the wrath of many of your colleagues, I felt that I had finally got the message through.
BP, are not off the hook.
[QUOTE=alvis;38125]It doesn’t sound like the government has the knowledge or equipment to kill this well. I do wonder if the government could take over the kill and cleanup operations and then turn around and subcontract these operations to BP. Then the government would have control of things. Dell or other legal eagles, would this even be legally possible?[/QUOTE]
Alvis,
I think–but am NOT sure–that BP, by the terms of the lease, would have had the responsibility not to have leaks, and to do cleanup. And so, that’s the way it was addressed at the start. The volume of the spill is obviously far beyond what even BP was equipped and ready to handle. The feds could, I expect, step back in, under the terms of the lease, if BP was doing (blank) inadequately/improperly.
Geodude raises a good point that I agree with, and it would not have to be BP and its contractors that would get the bids. Instead, it would be open to federal contracting procedures (which, as you remember, has the ‘shovel-ready’ projects under way THIS summer). There are also ways to speed this up enormously, as in the 9–11 cleanup, but I don’t know how those mechanisms work.
[QUOTE=alvis;38125]It doesn’t sound like the government has the equipment to kill this well. I do wonder if the government could take over the kill and cleanup operations and then turn around and subcontract these operations to BP. Then the government would have control of things. Dell or other legal eagles, would this even be legally possible?[/QUOTE]
It has been proposed by someone else that the US government create a task force of experts from MMS, USCG, EPA, Exxon, Chevron etc., and put them in charge of this mess with the oil majors using their brightest minds to come up with a solution, it would be in their best interest to do so. Get BP out of the picture completely. I think this is a swell idea but I don’t see it happening because the thing has been so screwed up by BP by now that no sane oil company will get near the thing. In the meantime I think there’s a good chance the well will erode the casing and become an unstoppable downhole leak unless we are all very, very lucky.
I hope I’m wrong.
Tengineer
[QUOTE=dell;38128]Alvis,
I think–but am NOT sure–that BP, by the terms of the lease, would have had the responsibility not to have leaks, and to do cleanup. And so, that’s the way it was addressed at the start. The volume of the spill is obviously far beyond what even BP was equipped and ready to handle. The feds could, I expect, step back in, under the terms of the lease, if BP was doing (blank) inadequately/improperly.
Geodude raises a good point that I agree with, and it would not have to be BP and its contractors that would get the bids. Instead, it would be open to federal contracting procedures (which, as you remember, has the ‘shovel-ready’ projects under way THIS summer). There are also ways to speed this up enormously, as in the 9–11 cleanup, but I don’t know how those mechanisms work.[/QUOTE]
Agreed that BP should not get the contract for clean up. The President made a comment that BP would do what Thad Allen told them to do. I didn’t know if there was an legal bite to that comment or not. After all, they’re still using Corexit.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Did BP Start Losing Containment of the Oil Well in February?http://gcaptain.com/forum/offshore/4805-deepwater-horizon-transocean-oil-rig-fire.html#post38131
The Deepwater Horizon blew up on April 20th, and sank a couple of days later. BP has been criticized for failing to report on the seriousness of the blow out for several weeks.
However, as a whistleblower previously told 60 Minutes, there was an accident at the rig a month or more prior to the April 20th explosion:
[Mike Williams, the chief electronics technician on the Deepwater Horizon, and one of the last workers to leave the doomed rig] said they were told it would take 21 days; according to him, it actually took six weeks.
With the schedule slipping, Williams says a BP manager ordered a faster pace.
“And he requested to the driller, ‘Hey, let’s bump it up. Let’s bump it up.’ And what he was talking about there is he’s bumping up the rate of penetration. How fast the drill bit is going down,” Williams said.
Williams says going faster caused the bottom of the well to split open, swallowing tools and that drilling fluid called “mud.”
“We actually got stuck. And we got stuck so bad we had to send tools down into the drill pipe and sever the pipe,” Williams explained.
That well was abandoned and Deepwater Horizon had to drill a new route to the oil. It cost BP more than two weeks and millions of dollars.
“We were informed of this during one of the safety meetings, that somewhere in the neighborhood of $25 million was lost in bottom hole assembly and ‘mud.’ And you always kind of knew that in the back of your mind when they start throwing these big numbers around that there was gonna be a push coming, you know? A push to pick up production and pick up the pace,” Williams said.
Asked if there was pressure on the crew after this happened, Williams told Pelley, “There’s always pressure, but yes, the pressure was increased.”
But the trouble was just beginning: when drilling resumed, Williams says there was an accident on the rig that has not been reported before. He says, four weeks before the explosion, the rig’s most vital piece of safety equipment was damaged.
As Bloomberg reports today, problems at the well actually started in February:
BP Plc was struggling to seal cracks in its Macondo well as far back as February, more than two months before an explosion killed 11 and spewed oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
It took 10 days to plug the first cracks, according to reports BP filed with the Minerals Management Service that were later delivered to congressional investigators. Cracks in the surrounding rock continued to complicate the drilling operation during the ensuing weeks. Left unsealed, they can allow explosive natural gas to rush up the shaft.
“Once they realized they had oil down there, all the decisions they made were designed to get that oil at the lowest cost,” said Peter Galvin of the Center for Biological Diversity, which has been working with congressional investigators probing the disaster. “It’s been a doomed voyage from the beginning.”
On Feb. 13, BP told the minerals service it was trying to seal cracks in the well about 40 miles (64 kilometers) off the Louisiana coast, drilling documents obtained by Bloomberg show. Investigators are still trying to determine whether the fissures played a role in the disaster.
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2010/06/did-bp-oil-well-blow-out-in-february.html this is the source, sorry i am learning how to blog
[QUOTE=alcor;38127] . . . BP, are not off the hook.[/QUOTE]
As well they shouldn’t be: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/25/96591/is-it-time-to-consider-barring.html
[QUOTE=tengineer;38129] In the meantime I think there’s a good chance the well will erode the casing and become an unstoppable downhole leak unless we are all very, very lucky.
I hope I’m wrong.
Tengineer[/QUOTE]
Agree with you about the erosion but disagree about the unstoppable part. If/when they intercept MC252 beneath the source of the influx they should be able to kill it. The hard part is getting the correct kill rate. Pump too fast and they might create and underground blowout. The well might, by now be blowing out from multiple zones. I am confident they will kill it but I fear most that BP will, after the kill, make the world believe all is well and that they have saved the gulf. That swede has already been alluding to this in statements he made last week.
So the Department of Energy and Congress have committed to development of the deepwater Gulf oil reserves in the name of national security. This also helps explain why Obama has been pro-drilling in the Gulf.
Indeed, BP supplies most of the oil and gas to the U.S. military. That might help to explain why Obama is talking tough but going easy on BP.
But let’s take a step back and ask why the government considers oil a national security priority in the first place.
Well, as professor of national security affairs at the Naval War College Mackubin T. Owens writes:
The concern of these lawmakers [regarding the BP oil spill] is understandable, but lest they overreact, they need to place their valid concerns within the broader context of the nation’s economic health and energy security.
Americans currently consume about 22 million barrels of oil daily, of which about two-thirds is imported. The Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects imports to reach 70% by 2025. This means we send billions of dollars abroad in payment for foreign oil. This makes little sense when, according to the U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS), there are vast reserves of oil and gas beneath Federal lands and coastal waters. And it is likely that even these estimates are low. For instance, in 1987, MMS estimated that there were 9 billion barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico. By 2007, once drilling had begun in deeper waters, MMS had revised its estimate upward to 45 billion.
In addition, the U.S. military is the largest consumer of oil in the world. And the government is eager to ensure that the military maintains access to oil
source of following storyhttp://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/06/oil-is-considered-national-security.html
[QUOTE=rlanasa;38123]§ 1112. Manslaughter
How Current is This?
(a) Manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without malice. It is of two kinds:
Voluntary—Upon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion.
Involuntary—In the commission of an unlawful act not amounting to a felony, or in the commission in an unlawful manner, or without due caution and circumspection, of a lawful act which might produce death.
(b) Within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States,
Whoever is guilty of voluntary manslaughter, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 15 years, or both;
Whoever is guilty of involuntary manslaughter, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 8 years, or both.[/QUOTE]
Sounds like the sentence for each person found guilty is times 11 isn’t it?
BP is Not the Only One with Expertise http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2010/06/since-bp-has-broken-everything-it-has.html
Government spokesmen have said that BP’s technical knowledge and equipment are superior to the government’s. But that is misleading.
The U.S. government might not have expertise, but many private companies do. For example, Norway’s Statoil is the largest offshore operator in the world, with enormous experience in deepwater drilling. Chevron, Exxon, Royal Dutch Shell and other companies also have substantial experience in such operations.
These companies are not without their own - although smaller - history of spills. But BP’s safety record is the worst. See this, this, this and this.
And because other companies don’t have a huge, direct legal and financial interest in trying to underplay this spill (BP could be fined between $1,100 and $4,300 per barrel of oil released, and oil industry expert Matt Simmons believes that BP will be driven into bankruptcy), they will likely be somewhat more motivated to protect the Gulf and less motivated to try to cover their backs by hiding the evidence and pretending everything is fine. Moreover, group-think will likely be less if a diverse team drawn from different companies is involved, instead of a bunch of guys within the same company - BP.
Numerous countries have also offered to help. See this, this, this and this, but BP and the U.S. government have rejected their offers.
And the offers from many private citizens - many with relevant expertise - to help clean up the oil pollution have been rejected by BP as well.
Indeed, it is no longer just the U.S. threatened by this catastrophe, but also Mexico, Cuba, and possibly many other countries as well.
Fire BP
The government shouldn’t let the knuckleheads who caused the blowout and have made everything worse drill the relief wells and control the mitigation and cleanup efforts.
The White House should, instead, remove BP from the scene of the crime and appoint an international team of experts to drill relief wells, kill the spill, and clean up this mess on BP’s dime.
This has been run by the law but wrong at least publicly from the beginning. The problems should have been broken down with one clear in charge leader for each.
One leader should have been picked by the heads of the largest US oil companies and named by the president to stop or limited the flow from the well head/riser.
One leaders picked by the heads of the largest US oil companies and named by the president to drill the relief well or wells.
The President should have named on navy leader to get the spilled oil out of the water.
The President should have named one military leader to keep the oil off of the land.
The President working with the leading enviormental groups should have named one leader to run the cleanup.
BP should have been left to pay the bills.
Each of these leaders should own their job only and report directly to the President with the authority to speak for and sign for The President. The EPA, OSHA, COE, GC and everyone else would report to these empowered leaders.
No ifs, ands or buts… Just get each of the jobs done!