What the oil "spill" (oops, a little puddle on the linoleum) shows us is that most of us live lives at odds with the world around us. Can't do that for long without getting into big trouble. Those who recognize the failures are up against fellow citizens who think it's wussy, nuancy, hopey-'n'-changey to worry about the context of our lives. They are wrong, dead wrong. First the oil-suffocated pelicans and dolphins. Next? Us.
The New York Times reports the comment of a University of Texas professor who hit the nail on the head.
Tad W. Patzek, chairman of the Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering Department at the University of Texas, Austin, has analyzed reports of what led to the explosion. “It’s a very complex operation in which the human element has not been aligned with the complexity of the system,” he said in an interview last week.
Well, then you can forget about regulations.
...Deepwater rigs operate under an ad hoc system of exceptions. The deeper the water, the further the exceptions stretch, not just from federal guidelines but also often from company policy.
"Slipshod" doesn't begin to cover Gulf operations.
On the Deepwater Horizon, for example, the minerals agency approved a drilling plan for BP that cited the “worst case” for a blowout as one that might produce 250,000 barrels of oil per day, federal records show. But the agency did not require the rig to create a response plan for such a situation.
If a blowout were to occur, BP said in its plan, the first choice would be to use a containment dome to capture the leaking oil. But regulators did not require that a containment dome be kept on the rig to speed the response to a spill. After the rig explosion, BP took two weeks to build one on shore and three days to ship it out to sea before it was lowered over the gushing pipe on May 7. It did not work.
(The rig’s “spill response plan,” provided to The Times, includes a Web link for a contractor that goes to an Asian shopping Web site and also mentions the importance of protecting walruses, seals and sea lions, none of which inhabit the area of drilling. The agency approved the plan.)
Want more?
More than five weeks before disaster, the rig was hit by several sudden pulsations of gas called “kicks” and a pipe had become stuck in the well. The blowout preventer, designed to seal the well in an emergency, had been discovered to be leaking fluids at least three times. A series of different, profiteering (yes) corporations were involved in the process which was supposed to prevent disasters.Amid this tangle of overlapping authority and competing interests, no one was solely responsible for ensuring the rig’s safety, and communication was a constant challenge.
So who gets tagged with the legal responsibility for what happened?
Shrug.
Citing “a wide range of possible violations,” [Attorney General Eric] Holder declined to specify the target of the investigation, because, he said, the authorities were still not clear on “who should ultimately be held liable.”
Sound familiar?
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One important legal avenue, a legacy of the Exxon Valdez spill, is the more effective Clean Water Act -- even to the point of levying punishing fines for the use of dispersants.
The Clean Water Act allows the U.S. to seek civil fines for every drop of oil that's spilled into the nation's navigable waters. Under the act, the basic fine is $1,100 per barrel spilled.If a judge finds that the spill was a result of gross negligence, the fines can rise to $4,300 a barrel. Gross negligence has been defined as highly reckless disregard.The civil fines would be on top of any criminal fines. BP also owes economic damages, which are capped at $75 million. The company has said it will pay all "legitimate" economic claims it receives even if they exceed the cap.Some experts have estimated that BP could face up to $10 billion in liabilities...
...Other laws that could come into play include the Oil Pollution Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. ...McClatchy
