Oil Spill -- Non-Political & Non-Legal Issues

[ERD50]

surprisingly, time mag is bordering on cranking out some journalism...

The BP Spill: Has the Damage Been Exaggerated? - TIME

Interesting read. This line grabbed me:

he predicts that the oil will destroy fewer marshes than the airboats deployed to clean up the oil.

Yikes! There's some irony for you. But it happens all over with environmental issues, people fail to account for the consequences - for example, no Nukes means more Coal in most cases.

OTOH, I hope this doesn't now swing the other way, and everyone forgets about it in another week (when the journalists will need to find another disaster to write about). The regulators need to get serious about the requirements for preventative measures and quickly deployable containment measures when the preventive measures fail. And it won't take a dime of taxpayer money - charge the oil companies fees to support the regulator expenses. The same way I pay for a building permit which funds the building inspectors. That puts the cost back on the customers of the product, which is where it should be.

-ERD50

 

[ronocnikral]

OTOH, I hope this doesn't now swing the other way, and everyone forgets about it in another week (when the journalists will need to find another disaster to write about). The regulators need to get serious about the requirements for preventative measures and quickly deployable containment measures when the preventive measures fail. And it won't take a dime of taxpayer money - charge the oil companies fees to support the regulator expenses. The same way I pay for a building permit which funds the building inspectors. That puts the cost back on the customers of the product, which is where it should be.

-ERD50

i think the "Big 4" are hoping this quells some worries...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/business/energy-environment/22response.html

The four companies said their initiative would seek to include all the companies involved in offshore drilling in the gulf, including BP. Their initial financing of $250 million each will be used to build a set of containment equipment, like underwater systems and pipelines, that will be able to deal with a variety of deepwater problems and can be deployed rapidly in the event of a spill.

 

[harley]

Well, I for one hope the new optimism on the oil degradation is accurate. But I think the reason so many people are questioning the validity of these claims is that there was such a lack of transparency and cooperation on the part of both BP and the Federales during the capping and cleaning process. Of course, some will claim things are worse than they really are in the hopes of getting more money out of BP. And BP will claim things are better than they really are in order to minimize their costs and to try to salvage a little reputation. It will be be interesting to look back on it in a couple of years and see how it turned out.