Recently, NBC reporter Tom Costello interviewed BP Exploration and Production Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles on the “Today” show concerning the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Specifically, he asked Suttles for what his response was to the rapidly circulating info that oil spill cleanup technology is woefully behind the times, making the oil spill cleanup painfully inefficient. . “There are so few big spills,” he told Costello, “and events haven’t driven the technology change.”
It takes an oil spill to motivate BP to have proper oil spill cleanup technology?
The lack of foresight by BP on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill – or lack of sufficient motivation to invest in preventative oil spill cleanup technology actions – is clear. What is also clear is the financial effect the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has had and will continue to have on BP and also the economies of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. NBC New York reports that BP has already spent $1.6 billion on the spill response and related claims. . This doesn’t consider BP’s loss in share price. Their market capitalization has fallen around 50 percent. It’s easy to imagine BP CEO Tony Hayward barking “I need money now” at the moon, but local economies need it even a lot more. The cost to local economies that were very damaged by the oil spill will even reach into the billions of dollars, experts predict.
I get to be the Gulf of Mexico walrus
Dealing with an oil spill isn’t BP’s main priority. They would have been prepared for this spill otherwise. It was reported by the Associated Press that the 582-page regional oil spill cleanup plan for the Gulf of Mexico region and a shorter document addressing the specific Deepwater Horizon incident are littered with “mistakes and erroneous assumptions.” Among these are a whole bunch of incorrect contact info for consulted marine life specialists (one of whom actually died in 2005, four years before the larger document was filed). But not being able to contact sources regarding the specific needs of marine life within the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico is perhaps for the best, as BP is claiming that the walrus is found there. Walruses live in cold water like Alaska. In a weak defense, Doug Suttles claimed the document specifically labeled for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill addressed “all impacted species,” instead of ones that really inhabit the region. This is at the very least inefficient and illogical on BP’s part.
Need more oil spills to advance technology? BP, do the math
According to Wikipedia (which is hardly a super-secret source of details), there have been 49 recorded oil spills worldwide given that the year 2000. About 24 happened in the US. If that amounts to “too few oil spills,” then BP probably needs to go back to school for a healthy dose of perspective and basic reasoning skills. Check out the Rachel Maddow video below if you need help, BP – she points out some of the major U.S. spills on a map.
Read more on this topic here
NBC New York
nbcnewyork.com/news/breaking/BP_has_plenty_of_money_to_pay_spill_damages-96366344.html
NOLA.com
nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/06/as_bp_promised_the_walruses_ar.html
Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_spills
