Kanook – Tlingit Nation

June 1st, 2010

There are a number of items that I will touch on in this brief summary on the on-
going disaster 48-miles south of Louisiana, which by all accounts is within the
bounds of the United States of America, and under the jurisdiction of its citizens.
On April 20th, 2010 the oil-rig Deepwater Horizon, built in South Korea and owned
by Transocean Lts., suffered a massive explosion that immediately killed eleven rig
workers, with a resulting fire that could not be extinguished, whereas on April 22 nd
the rig sank.

The rig, insured for $560 million in sinking settled about 1,500 feet northwest of
the well-head, which by all appearances has a more that 1.5 meter diameter head
and is today June 1st, 2010 still gushing in the neighborhood of 750,000 gallons of
crude per day. Flowing uncontrollably for 42 days it has gushed a conservative total
of 31.5 million gallons of crude, this is considered the worst oil-disaster the USA has
experienced since California Lakeview blowout in 1910 at 3.0 million gallons per day
for one-year.
British Petroleum (“BP”) the owner of the drill-site, and the permit holder from the
United States has tried a number of various methods to stop the flow of crude, the
latest one being forcing thick mud down into the well-head opening, along with
filling the Blowout Preventer with associated “junk fill”, it hasn’t worked. The
previous attempt was to install a large containment vessel over the opening in
hopes of attaching a pipe to its top and channeling the oil to the surface – didn’t
work either.

One survivor on the rig later in his testimony to the House Judiciary Committee,
Steven Stone provided a response that places the accident within the content we’re
witnessing, “This event was set in motion years ago by these companies needlessly
rushing to make money faster, while cutting corners to save money.” Keith D. Jones
the father who lost his 28-year-old son said, “Please believe me, no amount of
money will ever compensate us for Gordon’s loss…but reckless acts by employees
of corporations, performed to try to make the most money the fastest, will never be
deterred by the payment of mere compensatory damages.”
On the part of the United States Federal government, information that was known
years ago, some of which was published and quickly forgot by the public, was data
that demonstrated that inspectors for Minerals Management Services (a internal
Interior agency that was created by Interior Secretary James G. Watt in 1982, and
funded by royalties from the gas and oil industry) accepted and did not report gifts
from the companies they were supposed to regulate, and they “may” have falsified
inspection reports – this the Interior Department’s IG (inspection general) reported
in a scathing report released on the 27th of May,
One section of his report noted that one particular inspector completed four safety
reviews of an off-shore platform operator, even as the inspector was negotiating a
salary with the operator for a position with his company. Other sections of the IGs
report on the acceptance of other perks such as skeet-shooting outings (which are
popular in the deep south), expensive meals, trips and college football tickets, given
freely to the inspectors and their teams responsible for strict compliance to safety
and operational regulars established by the Federal Government.
There were two Federal employees that admitted using cocaine and crystal
methamphetamine, provided by the companies or persons associated with them,
and other investigations that there were several other deskbound data operators
who were using their government e-mail accounts to spread pornography and racist
comments and opinions.
If you never worked in a big corporation or any civil service position let me explain
a thing or two to you, corruption usually begins (about 99% of the time) at the
upper levels, whereas a common phrase you might hear walking through the halls
of power will be, “Why that is the way things are usually done!” Or, “a little slip here
and there never hurt anyone” – I’m not sure when the Department of Interior went
sour, but in the case of the Bureau of Indian Affairs that agency went sour far back
in our countries history, nobody really paid too much attention to the graph and
corruption in the goings-on within its halls simply because the population it was
entrusted to take care of per the US Constitution was fairly small.
As for the agencies charged with watching over the oil industry, being all lumped
together was seen as a way to bring forces together to provide an effective
oversight, one department in charge of regulations and rules, one to make sure
they were being followed and the third to enforce the finding of the previous two. In
the case of the deep-south, most of the inspections were done by field agents who
were inspecting their brothers, sisters or cousins and other relatives work – and you
and I realize that albeit there is a good sized population in the oil country states –
they are a close knit family, have and always have been.
You put a wide-eyed northern boy or girl down there in an office, and one-hundred
to one the local straw-boss would have him or her out inspecting the garbage scows
hauling the waste from the operations, no-more – no-less end of story. Their status
wouldn’t change until they’d been around awhile, attended a few family picnics and
met a few of the good-old-boys, if you know what I mean, that is how business is
done in oil country.
 Those shrimp boats dragging some booms and pickup material around attempting
to scrape some of the oil of the surface? You can be your last dollar each one of
them has a relative working on a rig in the Gulf – and you know what else, all of
them have a story to tell about the shortcuts being taken every hour, every day, 7-
days a week, 52-weeks out of the year – they get paid healthy bonuses to bring that
oil home on time or ahead of time. That’s how it’s done in big industry – and as for
the civil service, someone somewhere doing something, unless he or she is above a
GS-13, is always looking for a position in the industry, especially in the oil industry,
it is just a fact of life.
In reality back in 2001 when Dick Cheney had his meeting with over 100 cronies in
the oil industry, he had one massive debt to pay – whereas during his tenure at
Halliburton he almost broke them, I speak true. After that meeting in 2001 the
incoming VP of the United States of America and ramped up the Material
Management Service with some of his cronies, this in a follow up to a 2000 decision
“requiring” a mandatory acoustic regulator installation on every off-shore oil
operation. With his cronies now sitting around the mahogany halls in D.C. in 2003
his cronies based partly on an outside report, changed that requirement, whereas a
report prepared by West Engineering Services located in Brookshire, Texas (77423)
deep in the heart of oil country with more ties to BP and Halliburton then they do to
the US government, published their report stating flatly that the remote acoustic
shutoff arrangement would be a waste of corporate money and that they were not
positive it would work. Bingo, the Material Management Service changed the
regulations and the remote acoustic shutoff mechanisms were no longer a
requirement in American waters. The cost of one setup at a well-head - $500,000,
they were not necessary!
 Our upfront and honest ex-VP’s Halliburton is today connected to that day in April,
big time, albeit the investigation of the explosion is not complete – Halliburton had
just completed an operation to reinforce the drilling-hole casing with concrete,
Cheney’s boy are currently under investigation for a blowout in the Timor Sea
caused by a faulty concrete casing – and to the Material Management Service’s
credit some lowly individual released data that said 18 or 19 blowouts in the Gulf of
Mexico were due to poor workmanship in injecting the cement around the well
casing!
It should be no secret to any of you sitting out there scratching your heads, when
you look back at the relationship between Big Oil and the Bush/Cheney White House
– the practice of bending over and taking one in the shorts for Big Oil trickled down
through the regulatory bureaucracy – I guess this is what the GOP meant when they
said “trickle-down economics”, well guess what it worked, for the oil guys. Don’t
get me wrong the trickle-down effect paid a lot of perks for the lowly paid Material
Management folks – paid well and they laughed all the way to the good old southern
feeds, held by the oil companies up and down that historic Andrew Jackson coast.
To say one more time, to blame the management of this “accident” all on the
Obama administration is not without merit, but it is without merit to blame the
administration following the regulations set to the pen by the Bush/Cheney
administration – after-all the Obama guys are mostly lawyers and they do follow the
letter of the law – somewhat!
As for the resignation of S. Elizabeth "Liz" Birnbaum on Thursday last (May 27th)
get a grip, here we find a capable educated member of the opposite sex stepping
into a position as the MMS Director, a den full of cronies and whatnot selected by
the Bush/Cheney White House, whereas Obama charged her with cleaning up the
agency, but forgot to sent a mop bucket and mop with her. Remains me of when
Ada Deer was appointed by President Clinton to oversee the Bureau of Indian Affairs
(“BIA”), again like throwing a fresh fish into a Cajun kitchen – she also was not able
to make any headway with her assignment. This is our government folks, other
than the British pulling another 1812 we’re stuck with it and they ain’t a hell-of-lot
you can do about it. Cronies, big business and other nations are pulling our strings.
The result?

There is more to this “accident” then just a few gross miss-steps by the boys on
the Potomac, albeit they seem to play a major part in all of it – now we’ll take a
peek at the operations of the big money guys working the operation.
Tuesday last our Congress released a “memorandum” with some findings noted
from some internal investigation done by our friends of our environment BP that
stated that there were some warning signs immediately before the explosion,
including equipment reading “suggesting” that gas was bubbling into the well, as
any old timer will tell you – a potential indication of a blowout. A portion of the
documents reveal that BP was struggling with a loss of “well control”, as a matter of
record back some 11-months ago BP had some serious concerns about the well
casing and the blowout preventer. Last June 22nd, an internal memo indicated that
BP’s engineers expressed concerns that the metal well casing the big guys wanted
to use “might” collapse under pressure where Mark E. Hafle one of the senior
drilling engineers remarked, “this would certainly be a worst-case scenario,
however, I have seen it happen so know it can occur!”
A corporate decision was made, but only after getting special permission from BP
big wigs because it “violated” corporate safety policies and design standards –
other documents show that company officials knew the casing was the riskier of two
options, no document gives the reason why they made the decision the way they
did – but it really doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out – the other option
probably meant using a device that wasn’t on hand and didn’t want to waste time
waiting for the 2nd option to show up.
Mr Hafle, in the same hearing as the others participated in last week in Louisiana
made the comment, “Nobody believed there was going to be a safety issue.”
Excuse me, their own rules outlined the safety issues whereas the guys on the rig
had to get special permission to walk around those issues and use the casing that
didn’t meet company specifications. He reminds me of the guy caught with his
hand in the cookie jar and a half-chewed snack between his choppers denying he is
stealing your cookies.
During the first part of April BP engineers concluded that the Halliburton fix to the
leaking casing was, “unlikely to be a successful cement job,” and that the casing fix
would be “unable to fulfill M.M.S regulations.” Whereas another document
submitted, “It is possible to obtain a successful cement job, it is possible to fulfill
M.M.S. regulations.” Andrew Gowers a BP spokesman, said the 2 nd document was
produced after further testing had been done.
Understandably the primary investigation is focused on why the “blowout
preventer” did not work, whereas in the pile of 50,000 pages of company e-mail
messages it became evident that the operation was experience problems with the
five-story blowout preventer whereas on at “least” three occasions it was leaking
fluid (it is hydraulic fluid in the device that controls its operation), and the casing
long before the 20th of April, 2010. In March of this year, the documentation show
that after the rig had experience problems with falling drilling mud and sudden
releases of gas known as “kicks” and pipe falling into well is when the BP officials
informed federal regulators they were struggling with a loss of well control.
Last week a parade of witnesses at a hearing told about “bad decisions” and
“corners being cut” in the days and hours before the explosion, but the Press
decided to forego pawing through those testimonies and utilize BPs internal
documents to provide a “clearer
picture” of when the company and
federal officials saw problems. You
and I call this lazy!
Naturally into this mix of
mismanagement and oil you will
find the bane of our society, those
who up until a few years ago
played grab-ass in the halls of
legal schools all over the country,
the legal eagle (although the eagle
is our national bird, it is a
scavenger) who have lined up on
the shorelines of the Gulf states four and sometime five deep waving class-action
papers wildly in the air, like fourth graders at a Fourth of July Parade in Idaho. One
person of the species with a last name, Jones, a Baton Rouge good old boy shouted
out, “If you want these companies, one of which is headquartered in Great Britain
and another in Switzerland, to make every effort to make sure their employees
don’t act as these did, putting American lives at risk, you must make certain that
they are exposed to pain the only place they can feel it – their bank accounts.”
Translation: I’m counting on making a bundle!
Now I’m just as concerned about the environment and the jobs of those people
affected by this “accident” as anyone, but if you want to see how well this
profession, as the scum of the earth, did for the citizens of Prince William Sound –
check the records. After almost a half-century of back slapping and well paid
excursions to the Mustang Ranch in Nevada, the case was settled – each citizen
received $1.50 and each lawyer in the vicinity of over $2million. How fair and even
is that? And Exxon walked away saving billions in the class-action suit – yea let’s
hear it for the policemen of the civil court and our American citizens! My opinion,
we’re sending our troops in the wrong direction, and the people in Arizona are
passing laws to stop the wrong type of people entering their state, pass a couple of
measures that extends the curfew for these people to even go outside, disobey,
string them up!
Back in real-time, on the 20th of April, one Christopher Pleasant, the poor duck in
charge of the blowout preventer, told the committee that he and a colleague in
looking at a television monitor they noticed water and mud issuing from the well –
Christopher tried to contact his superiors by rig-phone but could not get through,
and by the time he reached bridge, there was fire on the deck.
He then said he told the captain, Curt Kuchta, that he wanted to launch the
emergency disconnect system, (“EDS”) which is designed to detach the rig from the
well. According to Christopher, the captain Kuchta told him, “Calm down, we’re
NOT EDS-ing!”
Pleasant, about 4 or 5 minutes later said he began the procedure to EDS and
found the hydraulic system not responding, “I saw that I had no flow, no
hydraulics…there were no indications that anything actually happened!” Running
onto the main deck and saw the increasing fire, “four or five minutes later, the
captain said, ‘Hit the EDS”! I said, ‘I already have.’ “
Christopher Pleasants’ testimony before the joint-panel of the Coast Guard and the
Mineral Management Service is consistent with other evidence that the “rig” could
not disconnect from the well, which continued to spew oil and gas up a riser pipe to
the surface.
Captain Curt Kuchta testifying on Thursday offered up a different scenario, he told
his audience that he was on the bridge with BP and Transocean Ltd. Executive,
(using a simulator) when he noticed drilling mud in the water – he said “another”
manager came to him to ask to engage the EDS system , which he approved.
Wonder what kind of simulator they were running, “how to put out a gas fire, 48-
miles out in the Gulf?” Who knows, well I take that back, some one knows but since
I haven’t seen any report of what the simulation was in the press – I can only guess.
As of late (last few days) scientists say they are finding in the Gulf of Mexico water
column layers of oil at various depths – one associated professor of the University of
Florida, Ernst Peebles told the world that, “We have all the circumstantial evidence
pointing to a layer of oil at 400 meters [1,312’]”, whereas he said that the ship’s
sonar detected a thick “structure” about a quarter of a mile deep and about 45-
miles northeast of the well head. He also mentioned that other scientists had found
a similar layer of hydrocarbons and particulates about 3,300 feet deep, 24-miles
from the well.
These same scientists tell us that the 18.6 mile long, 6.2 mile wide plume of oil
about 3,280 feet below the surface is “potentially” sucking up all the oxygen, killing
plankton and creating a dead zone that will eventually spread. The findings from
the likes of the University of South Florida, the University of Georgia, Southern
Mississippi University and others are based on initial observations of water samples
taken in the Gulf over the last several weeks.
A marine scientist at Louisiana State University, James Cowan reported finding a
“plume” last week about 50-miles from the spill locations that reached depths of at
least 400 feet, and supported his claim with, “there’s been enough evidence from
enough different sources.”
Tony Hayward, BPs chief executive has disputed the claims of massive plumes
beneath the surface, saying the BPs sampling showed “no evidence” of any oil
suspended in large masses beneath the surface, “The oil is on the surface, Oil has a
specific gravity (crude in the Gulf is .973) that’s about half that of water (sea water
in the Gulf is 1.02198). It wants to get to the surface because of the difference in
specific gravity.” Actually it’s not half, more like 7.0% less than the sea water in the
Gulf at 77°F, in order for it to be 50% the crude would need to be at 0.51 SG, it is at
0.973 SG at 60°F.
Regardless NOAA has said they will be sending one of their research vessels down
to the area to investigate the recent findings, and their equipment will be a little
better than the “fish-finders” used by the Universities – I hope. Un until know,
NOAA has closed some 60,683 square miles of the Gulf in the immediate area to
fishing, an amount that represents about 25% of the Federal Waters in the Gulf of
Mexico.
 Tony Hayward – BPs CEO

Riding along with all this mess is the Blame Game, whereas all involved in the
public eye is shifting responsibilities between the players:

Where in one corner we seen BP blaming Transocean and Halliburton, where

Lamar McKay the President of BP PLC on May 10 th told the world that, “Transocean’s
blowout preventer failed to operate and that there needs to be two lines of inquiry,
1st is what caused the explosion and fire on the Transocean Horizon rig, and 2 nd why
did the rig’s blowout preventer, the ‘key’ fail-safe mechanism, fail to shut in the well
and release the rig?”

And in the other corner we find Halliburton’s Timothy Probert blaming BP on why
“BP continued to displace the riser with seawater before the planned placement of
the final cement plug, which would have been installed inside the production string
and enabled the planned temporary abandonment of the well?”

And sitting over at Transocean we hear Steven Newman, Transocean sweating

CEO say, “All off-shore oil and gas production projects begin and end with the
operator, in this case BP. The cementing process is dictated by the Operator’s well
plan, and the testing of the cement on the Deepwater Horizon was performed by
the cement contractor, (Halliburton in this case) as specified and directed by BP”

And on the 23rd of May the esteemed governor of Louisiana Bobby Jindal points a
shaky finger at the US Army Corp of Engineers for failing to “sign-off” on a plan to
build a chain of protective sand barriers (Berm’s) off the coast to help block the oil.

And on the 14th of May President Barack Obama repeats his assertion of BPs
“breakdown of responsibility” and “I did not appreciate what I considered to be a
ridiculous spectacle during the congressional hearing in this matter. You had
executives of BP and Transocean and Halliburton falling over each other to point the
finger of blame at somebody else.”
On the 23rd, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said, “If we find they’re (BP) not
doing what they’re supposed to be doing, we’ll push them out of the way
appropriately.”
The bottom of the circle of blame, the USACE had nothing to say nor did they point
a finger at anyone, a sign of good leadership in my book.
As for the statement from the US Secretary of the Interior, “get a grip Ken”, if BP
can’t find their butt some 5000 feet down in the darkness of the Gulf waters, how
do you expect your crew of misfits with spittle dripping from their chins following
the half-breed President deeper into his own abyss?

The preceding chart shows what is supposed to be the worst oil “accidents” in our
planets history, albeit the poor person sitting in the LA Times research office, who
must be around 25-years-old, that considers anything just a bit past the latest
Hollywood production history – for some reason neglected to note the Californian
Lakeview blowout in 1910 spewed forth some 1.095 billion gallons of crude over a
period on 365.24 days – one year for you who don’t own a calendar. The Gulf of
Mexico spill shown as number 2 on the chart was PEMEX’s “accident” in the Bay of
Campeche on June 3rd, 1979 in 160 feet of warm welcoming water. It took oil
experts over under ten-months to cap the oil well, and they even had Red Adair – it
was finally capped on March 23rd, 1980, this after injecting from 123.48 million to
370.44 million gallons of oil into the Bay of Campeche from the Ixtoc I operation.
These “pups” what to know what it is going to take to prevent another
“Accident”?