We all know what happened on April 20, 2010. About 5,000 feet under the sea and another 13, 000 feet under its bed…BP was drilling for the world’s gold. Then, something happened. I won’t say what happened was due to lax safety requirements solely because of the flag that flew on the rig…because I don’t know, but I can say, what happened wasn’t good.
Forty eight hours later the rig we knew as Deepwater Horizon, which was worth over a half a billion dollars, sank from the explosion and the beginning of the murdering of an ocean and all its resources began.
A few days of investigation and a whole lot of speculation later, the Coast Guard quietly reported the gush as pouring out 1,000 barrels of oil per day as they vow to dive into plans to stop it. But alas…the initial attempt fails. With pressure brewing, the ante raised, the Coast Guard changes their bets to the leak more likely seeping 5,000 barrels per day into the salty water. If you are not familiar with oil jargon… that is about 210,000 gallons. Per DAY!!!
April 29, 2010 – Obama steps up and promises that every resource available, including the US military will contain the spill (???) and the next day, BP Chairman Tony Hayward humbly accepts responsibility as a representative to the fine company of the tiny Marshall Islands (oh wait, BP has no corporate connection to these islands). Oh… and he said they would pay all costs of clean up (please remember this statement – for months, maybe even years… please remember this).
Fast forward three days…the real world starts to feel the real effects of the dirty grime when the US officially closes areas affected by the spill for fishing after Obama actually sees the devastation and in less than two more days, the oil introduces itself to the shores of Louisiana affecting its wildlife refuge.
Many failed attempts to stop the leak by BP will follow for the next several days. It seems that neither a 100 ton containment dome nor shredded up tires pumped undersea accompanied by golf balls are enough to do the trick, but, we must give BP credit for at least admitting that “a cascade of errors, technical, human and regulatory” caused the explosion. (not leaving any room for error on that assumption are they?).
Meanwhile, the US doubles the no-fishing zones in waters that once fed thousands of people by closing off more than 19% of US waters in the Gulf as the grime inches closer to threaten Florida. Obama! Where are you? Oh… there you are. He resurfaces again to slam companies involved just as we witness our first victory when BP succeeds in inserting a tube into the leaking well and captures some of the oil and gas (justa little) as the first heavy oil spill sloshes ashore the Louisiana marshlands.
All the while Obama stands and takes personal responsibility for this and valiantly states “the buck stops with me” almost at the same time that BP states that the disaster, thus far, has cost us $930 million. *sigh* Is anyone else dizzy yet??? Please do not play us with rhetoric at the exact moment that you have yet again failed in another attempt to stop the leak with a complex maneuver to plug the hole.
So in closing…
I say Fuck BP.
But then fucking them may leave us feeling used or worse… burnt…
Seems to be more questions than answers in this one and I stopped my blog at day 43…imagine the questions that will be asked at day 86…
