the reason i asked you that is that you specifically used the word "protocols" which to me refers to how you actually drill and not what lame paperwork they filed with the govt. it would not surprise me in the least to know that oil companies all filed the exact same plan as once you find something the govt likes you just keep mailing it in.

People itt are not distinguishing major differences imo when they talk about off shore drilling. i do not think it unreasonable to have a moratorium on drilling in 5,000 ft of water, given that has shown itself to be problematic from this very incident. However, i believe that such a moratorium would need to be accompanied by opening up more areas to closer in drilling in more normal shallow water areas. Shutting down the entire off shore program is not a reasonable response.

I agree the industry shouldn't be unilaterally shut down. There was is an issue that so far hasn't been solved. While all the parties are shouting at cameras to save their skin, the one thing missing is a NEW plan. Not a lip service dog & pony show, but an earnest effort to mitigate future emergencies.

In all that's rational and logical, this $20B **** up is not an efficient use of resources. Then there is the timing issue, hurricane season is around the corner. The drillers would be ceasing operations as in past years from a safety perspective.

For all the, free enterprise if given the chance will outperform expectations, where is the leadership at this time? Its not like the oil extraction companies haven't learned how to do more things over the past 100 years.

The 100 year storm design only works if you plan the system for the coming flood, not half of it every 200 years.

Spill, baby, spill!

Yep.

BP oil containment stopped after gas detected: coordinator

Is today a golf day or shoot hoops day, lost track of it.

Federal Gov't Halts Sand Berm Dredging

I'm guessing this reaction to Jindal et al successfully challenging admin's moratorium on drilling. Obama admin petty politics to the nth degree? Couldn't be or could it?

FYPlanet

wow that's good. why hasn't anyone thought of shamwow?

I'm guessing Jindal, Vitter et al are politically grandstanding. GOP petty politics to the nth degree? Couldn't be or could it?

http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...#ixzz0riGBy14J

Slosh and Berm: Building Sand Barriers off Louisiana's Coast to Hold Back Oil Spill Has Low Probability of Success

As always in the right wing mindset, when it's GOP players like Jindal versus the EPA, BP, the US Army Corps of Engineers, the writers of Scientific American, and geologists, it's probably the President who is playing petty politics and getting vindictive.

The day after Obama admin gets tromped in court berm construction stopped. I'm guessing that it's not a coincidence.

As far as the berms being a good idea I guess Time magazine is the unassailable source. Jindal seems to think otherwise though and more importantly Obama agreed apparently:

White House approves Louisiana berm plan: Jindal

But supporters of the plan say the spill is likely to remain a threat for months and that the berms could prove crucial in holding back oil debris that would otherwise be swept inland by hurricanes.

But now after Obama admin agreed they're reneging? Apparently.

Why would they need to be petty like that when they are just going to issue a new ban that has more justifications in it?

I'm too lazy to post linkys but it's not going to work that way in my view. Salazar is talking about modifying the moratorium to actually allow some deep water offshore drilling with some guidelines Civil procedure and such (lawyers please correct me if wrong) indicates to me that government will have to make a motion to lift the injunction on current moratorium (and of course make arguments persuading judge).

As an aside I was the plaintiff in a lawsuit that played out over the last year and a half. I won a key ruling from the judge that basically meant the case was over for all practical purposes. Leaving court that day I overheard defendant tell his lawyer to appeal the decision on the motion. Which is pretty much the knee jerk reaction. Also an appeal that's heard immediately (again I'm not a lawyer) is called an interlocutory appeal. Generally speaking appeals are entertained after case has been decided. There are rules about valid interlocutory appeals but I think the feds have grounds for making one. But again could be wrong about that.

post hoc ergo propter hoc. Why didn't he just go Predator Drone Assassinate the judge who ruled against him if he's just pissed off? Why would he stop sand dredging ...to get back at Jindal...because of what the judge did, yesterday? That'll teach the judge not to rule against him again.

Notice that Times is citing the Coast Guard, the EPA, the US Army Corps of Engineers, and BP as people who claim the beams are not a good idea. Oh, and then I also cited Scientific American, who had quotes from geologists, who echoed the concerns of the US Army Corps of Engineers and BP.

But yeah I mean what do those clowns know, if exorcist mystic and creationist Bobby Jindal gives his impressive scientific voice to the debate and demands the beams be created, who is Obama to disagree? He's probably just angry about something right? Jindal probably has no political motives whatsoever, so I mean Obama should just do whatever Jindal says, even if it contradicts what experts in the oil industry, the US military, the EPA, the Coast Guard, geologists, and journalists who cover science for a living are all saying.

What actually happened:

What I suspect happened is that the trials failed, as predicted by basically everyone who knew what they were talking about, so they stopped throwing more money down the drain trying to enact a solution that had little chance of success. I know, crazy right? ALL THIS PRESIDENT DOES IS OPTICS. That's all he does in the Gulf! Pure Kabuki theater. Just dog and pony shows and photo ops. Except when he doesn't do that, in which case, he hates the Gulf and the environment and is trying to destroy it, to get back at Bobby Jindal, for a decision a federal court made.

Right wing narratives: they make sense, if you don't know anything about the empirical world, and just assume liberals and Democrats are motivated like cartoon super villains. Barack Obama will stop the sand dredging that will save the Gulf, to punish Bobby Jindal, for what a federal court judge ruled yesterday.

Hey I have to admit Obama admin is doing a tremedous job in managing the cleanup effort, you've got me there.

Federal officials halt sand dredging to create Gulf of Mexico oil spill barrier

Italics added for emphasis.

Jindal and Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser said federal authorities want the state to move a dredging site farther from the Chandeleur Islands, a sensitive chain of barrier islands.

However, the Interior Department said the order was issued because the state was pumping sand from a sensitive section of the island chain and had failed to meet an extended deadline to install pipe that would tap sand from a less-endangered area.

The two Louisiana officials argue dredging should continue.

The dredging area includes the Chandeleurs and other barrier islands that are sensitive nesting grounds for species such as the brown pelican, which has been hit hard by oil washing up from the BP well 40 miles southeast of the mouth of the river.

Interior Assistant Secretary Tom Strickland said the berms are important in protecting marshes and wildlife. "But the berms have to be built right so they don't compromise the barrier islands, which serve as a first line of defense against storm surges and hurricanes," he said.

"We will continue to work closely with the state of Louisiana to move the project forward as we fight to protect Louisiana's coasts, communities and wildlife from the BP spill," Strickland said.

Strickland said the state originally agreed to take sand from an area in the northern Chandeleurs, but had been been pumping from a more sensitive area in the middle part of the chain. He said earlier this month the state asked for a week's extension on its agreement to run pipe to the more desired area but did not meet the deadline. "All we are trying to do is hold them to their own agreement," Strickland said.

Actually it has nothing to do with what you speculate. I have it from a source working on the cleanup that what govt wants to do is dredge 5 miles away from where they're currently dredging and use barges to take the sand in to build the berms. I found this out after I posted. It will add a lot of time to complete the berms. I'll concede that I don't know the risk involved to the barrier islands in continuing to dredge where they were but you don't know either apparently. So to make it clear, I admit I distrust Obama admin but in this instance I'll concede that I need to know more about the risk involved. The reports gave the impression that work on the berms was halted permanently and that's actually not the case. So my bad and your bad for jumping to conclusions.

zomg Jindal = creationist!

Dumbest news of the day: NY State Pension Fund to sue BP over loss in share price value.

Looks like I may need to resurrect my lawsuit against AOL for the shares I bought in March of 2000.

hahaha, they are suing thmselves.

i thought i was the only idiot...

BP Relied on Faulty U.S. Data

BP PLC and other big oil companies based their plans for responding to a big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on U.S. government projections that gave very low odds of oil hitting shore, even in the case of a spill much larger than the current one.

The government models, which oil companies are required to use but have not been updated since 2004, assumed that most of the oil would rapidly evaporate or get broken up by waves or weather. In the weeks since the Deepwater Horizon caught fire and sank, real life has proven these models, prepared by the Interior Department's Mineral Management Service, wrong.

So models were wrong, hmmm....

I guess it could be a right wing conspiracy promoted by Bush admin in cahoots with big oil to give big oil a pass on expensive contingency planning for spills. Also I would think that modeling oil spills is a mucho less complex endeavor than modeling earth's climate. If these models of oil spills were developed in good faith and they are far less challenging than developing climate models, how could these models possibly give bogus outputs? I mean we know that the climate models have to be right because, well, the model developers say they are so since modeling the climate is far more complex and the climate models are producing valid outputs it just has to be that the models of the oil spill were developed in bad faith because it's much simpler to develop oil spill models, amirite?

That makes sense, the entire industry/regulators have been incestuous for some time.

hmmmmm, What do I want the report to conclude? We can sell that if there's an issue, saves some cash for hookers, blow, and Superbowl tickets.

Well here's some info from this linky:

Oil spill

Oil spill model systems are used by industry and government to assist in planning and emergency decision making. Of critical importance for the skill of the oil spill model prediction is the adequate description of the wind and current fields. There is a worldwide oil spill modelling (WOSM) program.[23] Tracking the scope of an oil spill may also involve verifying that hydrocarbons collected during an ongoing spill are derived from the active spill or some other source. This can involve sophisticated analytical chemistry focused on finger printing an oil source based on the complex mixture of substances present. Largely, these will be various hydrocarbons, among the most useful being polyaromatic hydrocarbons. In addition, both oxygen and nitrogen heterocyclic hydrocarbons, such as parent and alkyl homologues of carbazole, quinoline, and pyridine, are present in many crude oils. As a result, these compounds have great potential to supplement the existing suite of hydrocarbons targets to fine tune source tracking of petroleum spills. Such analysis can also be used to follow weathering and degradation of crude spills.[24] The current worst-case estimate of what's spewing into the Gulf is about 2.5 million gallons a day.[25]

and this:

OILMAP: Oil Spill Model and Response System Overview

Following the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, a group of companies (Exxon, Chevron, Mobil, Environment Canada, US Army Corp of Engineers, Canadian Petroleum Association), recognized the need for a fast and accurate prediction modeling tool to assist with decision support. In turn Applied Science Associates Inc, were commissioned to develop an oil spill model to support effective response planning and to minimize damage in the event of an oil spill. This model was OILMAP.
Since then OILMAP, has become the most used and sought after oil spill model around the world and is used internationally by all major oil companies, governments, universities and research organizations. Some of the national government organizations that use OILMAP within the Asia-Pacific region include, Australian (Maritime Safety Authority), Singapore (Maritime Port Authority), Thailand (Pollution Control Department), South Korean (Korea Maritime University), Hong Kong (Pollution Control Department), China (Maritime Safety Authority), Japan (Safety and Environment Commission) and New Zealand (Maritime Safety Authority). OILMAP is also considered the World-Wide Industry Standard oil spill model, and many of the large oil companies rely only on OILMAP for oil spill predictions, including Chevron, Exxon, ConocoPhillips, Shell and Agip.
OILMAP is used in over 40 countries around the world by more than 200 licensed users. It has been applied to hundreds of spills varying in size globally.

So you're saying that the MMS didn't use this modeling and response system? I would have thought they would have. I mean if the MMS was using it then you're claiming I guess that all these companies, orgs, govts are part of the right wing conspiracy. But if MMS just went off and used some other non standard modeling system (which I doubt) then perhaps. One thing we're missing from WSJ article is the specifics of what models the Interior department was using. From reading the article it seems to go along with what the info in the links state. I'll email WSJ reporters and see if they have more specific info about models the Interior department used. Stay tuned.

Keith Johnson, one of the reporters, got back to me. He stated the following:

OILMAP is primarily an after-the-fact spill response system, though it does have some stochastic capabilities.
Nonetheless, oil spill response plans by law must use the MMS OSRA model for their oil spill trajectories.

Here’s the OSRA page:

http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/lsesale/osra/OSRA.html

So by law BP had to use this model, interesting. I have my doubts that this model was developed in bad faith FWIW. Apparently though, BPs planning for a spill response was based on the model's outputs and the US govt by law mandated that BP use the model for their oil spill response plan. US govt seems to bare a fair amount of responsibility for an inadequate oil spill response plan then.

Oil spill is not the same as a ruptured newly drilled well. 30 years ago a similar incident occurred, the manual should have included a chapter. If it were only a theoretical accident then the omission could be understandable.

The industry wants to proceed on a backwards thinking strategy on environmental issues, while they use a forward thinking plan for extraction issues. Former is a cost while the latter is a profit, I get it makes financial sense.

To clean up the mess is actually easy, skimmer barges, fleets upon fleets working in the Gulf could control the slick. Just add $$$$$$$$$. But the underlying issue(full pun intended) is the new oil ejected by full pressure. Where was the plan to address the possibility?

If you lobby hard enough, grease the appropriate wheels, you can change anything. They chose the probable(less expensive) over the possible.

Gov't is as guilty as the exploration companies, they both believe its acceptable to **** up and just pass the costs along.

Comedic gold alert:

"Looking For A Rosy Spin On The Gulf Spill? Try BP's Blog"

Shareholder lawsuits against companies the shareholders think screwed up are pretty standard and can be successful. I have heard of several of these before.