Kendra: BP is scamming us about cleaning up the mess

Here's quite an interesting video, at least from the little of it I can understand:

It's a lady, a Gulf community organizer named Kendra Arnesen of Venice, Louisiana, telling of her experience of being allowed to poke around at BP and nosing around the cleanup efforts, and her conclusion that it's largely a scam to persuade folks that BP is trying hard to do the right thing.

For others who have as hard a time understanding it as I do, here is a transcript someone called Supernova wrote out and posted at Democratic Underground:

Edited on Thu Jun-24-10 02:49 PM by supernova

(supernova - comments in parentheses

... denotes pauses in speech)

++++++++++
Thank you

OK, I'm not really a speech-giver. You guys try to bear with me; I'll try to make this as painless as possible.

To explain to you where I live, I am indeed the one on the very end. I am at Point 5 on Highway 23 in South Plaquamines Parish, Louisiana. Keep in mind through what I have to say, is that I am the mother of a five year old little boy and an eight year old girl who look like their Dad.

That being said, when this first happened, I really didn't know what to do. Who to ask questions to. Who was going to give us answers. The first day we were introduced to anyone from BP they came into our building and said

"BP does business right"

Yeah! Can you believe that? "BP does business right and we're here to take care of everything, folks."

Well, 61 days later, that's a joke, to say the least. Just to give you guys kind of perspective of where I've been, four weeks ago, I set up at a town all meeting at IND pinned down all involved (inaudible 1:16 ) and I am disturbed bye the end of their speech. At any rate, I was invited the following week to go behind "enemy lines." They gave me, of all people, security clearance to go into the base of operations meetings in Venice, Louisiana eight days in. Open door invitation to sit like a fly on the wall. Can you believe it? It's really going on. They also gave me security clearance to go up to the Homer Incident Command Post which is over the entire region of Louisiana. I've been in Coast Guard planes all the way out to the site itself. Helicopters. Boat rides. I have been everywhere that anybody could ever want to go to get an inside look at what's really going on.

Now, I want to start by telling you guys I am not at all impressed. Someone told me this morning that they thought I had crossed over. Well, I picked a team a long time ago. My Father was a Commercial Fisherman. And my Husband's a Commercial Fisherman. Every man that I've known, loved, and respected is on the water. They're good men.

At any rate, for the past week I've heard in the OPS meeting "We need to cut costs."

(audience response incredulous)

Yes, (nodding head) That's what they've said, that they need to cut costs.

I almost came out of my chair the first time I heard it, but I'm trying to stay where I am because someone has to be on the inside overlooking and seeing as to what's going on around. That being said, where I've seen "cutting costs" is quite unfortunate. What we call in Venice... First we gotta understand this phrase: "Ponies and balloons."

Well, the only place I"ve ever seen "ponies and balloons" is at the circus. Right? At any rate, about a week and half in, I learned what "ponies and balloons" meant. "Ponies and balloons" means that every time an official is headed anywhere near here, they get a heads up.. All assets are deployed into the hardest hit areas. The official comes in, flies over, "good job, fellas" (waves), pats 'em on the back. When that official disappears out of the hardest hit area, so does 75%-80% of the response.

It's happening. It's happening every day. I'm watching it. I've seen it. I don't agree with it. Anyone in this room's not gonna agree with it. Anyone in our great nation's not gonna agree with it.

We are expendable to these people. We do not matter.

Now, I'm gonna get off that. I'm sorry I talk in circles, but that's the coonass in me. Y'all following me, just let me know..

At any rate, I'm gonna go into the health issues for a moment, if you don't mind.

I've sat through endless hours of meetings with BP's safety officers. I've sat through an hour and 45 minute meeting with the Coast Guard Safety Officers, both in the Homer Incident Command Post, as well as a gentleman from OSHA.

In order to obtain a respirator for our responders -- now this isn't just Commercial Fishermen -- I'm talking about Coast Guard members, all responders, people off the street. Everybody involved.

Number 1: They have to fill out an OSHA questionnaire

Number 2: They have to have a physical evaluation by a medical professional.

But, EPA is doing air monitoring. Everything's OK. It's great. (incredulous) Yeah, imagine that.

At any rate, there is in fact some act somewhere, OSHA's law, that volunteers have a right to wear a "volunteer respirator."

BUT, as we all know, BP has taken over our Gulf. BP rules right now, our Gulf. Bottom line, that's who's in charge of the situation. (raises volume and pitch) They couldn't even run their own company and they are in charge of this response!

I'm totally appalled!

They can't wear a "volunteer respirator" because they aren't properly trained. BP's rules are that they have to be properly trained in order to wear a respirator. Now, BP said that they will provide the training and they will provide a respirator.

BUT, every thing's OK. (according to the EPA) So, they don't need to be trained and they don't need a respirator. And as far as the "right to wear volunteer respiration?" Guess what? If you don' t follow BP's rules, you don't have a job. And that's what they told me.

Now, I asked them to discuss the seven men that were brought, one by helicopter and six by ambulance. I asked them if they were at liberty to discuss that with me. And they said, "Yes Ma'am, we are."

I guess these guys didn't realize who they were talking to.

Number 1 response from Mr Hayward was food poisoning. Four different boats, all in ... way , way from each other. Food poisoning.

Second response was heat exhaustion.

Then last Wednesday -- I'm sorry, Wednesday a week ago -- when I sat with OSHA and BP safety officers, the OSHA man informed me that all four boats took Pine-Sol, sprayed it all over their boats, and then sat and breathed in the fumes all day long and that's what caused the chemical poisoning.

Hold on a second! I've been on boats all my life. I've been with captains all over the place. When we spray something on our boat, we wash it right off. If not, it eats the paint off the boat. We take care of ourselves. So that right there was just a blatant out lie.

So, then I asked them, throwed one out of left field at them. I said, so what about the people of 9/11? He said, it's funny you asked about that. Because I was working that job. We were following them around with respirators, begging them to put them on. And he actually pointed the finger at our New York Firefighters.

(audience boos)

Yeah, (nodding)

They are dying a slow death as we sit in this room right now from chemical poisoning. Pointing the finger at them and saying that they turned around and gave him the one finger salute. And said, "We're not wearing a respirator, we're looking for our friends."

Trained firefighters? In New York? Are you serious?

I wanted to just slap him in the face! But, I was good.

At any rate, you know, my children have broke out in four rashes. My child broke out in a rash the first time. I took her to Florida for four days. It magically cleared up. I brought her back, she broke out again. I left, she cleared up. Now today, she broke out again. Not to mention that my beautiful, healthy, straight-A student, gorgeous daughter has a double-ear infection. Upper respiratory problems. I left and went to Baton Rouge, and as I drove back home, clearing the throat, the stickiness, the upper respiratory irritation.

You know, the bottom line here is this morning I contacted Miss Marla Cooper who is District 9 Councilwoman for Plaquamines Parish. And Miss Marla has three grandchildren in our area and she's just a great grandparent and a good Mom, and I told her, "Miss Marla, we have got to call an evacuation of our area. We can not allow our citizens to sit like we're out in the middle of the -- we are, this is on all three sides of my home -- I walk outside and there's a haze. They're called "bad air days." "Folks, stay inside, put your air conditioning on recirculation. Everything's just fine."

Why would we need to lock ourselves up in our house? You really think that's gonna cut it? Do you really think that's gonna make the situation better? No. It's not. Where do you think the air that's inside the house comes from? Outside of the house.

These people, they never cease to amaze me. The lack of humanity, here. I know that my Parish only makes up two percent (2%) of Louisiana's population , but does that make my people expendable?!

This is unacceptable!

They are slowly poisoning every person that I've ever been close to in my entire life and I'm standing here saying NO MORE!

Now, if I ruffle some feathers, and make some people mad. So be it. I don't care. My people are more important to me than their "bottom line." And that is *my* bottom line.

So basically, this whole "ponies and balloons" act -- if someone does not come in and properly oversee this response -- our marsh now is being used as a boom. an overworked (?) boom, a big, giant sponge. It's on both sides of us. It will fill up, it is filling up, constantly. We have heavy, heavy crude penetrating our marsh right now as we speak. They deploy , and then they pull 'em back in when the politicians leave and this is not acceptable!

They're not cleaning it up; they're covering it up! This is, we're barely into this. This could go on for years and years and they are already cutting costs! Cutting costs, cutting corners, taking shortcuts is why we are all sittin' in this room today.

(applause)

Enough is enough!

Now, as far as EPA, OSHA, NOAA, BP, and the federal government , they every one of them's in collaboration with each other. That comes from someone at the top of NOAA. That's who I've been talking to. They gave me someone at the top of NOAA. But, they're all in collaboration with BP.

Are you serious!?!

Who do these people work for? I thought these were our agencies to protect our better interests, our world, our Earth, our lives and what is going on here? Are we that dependent upon these ... banks? to just roll over and let them poison our world? and our people in it?

This is unacceptable.

A week after this started they wanna say "Nothing's happening. Nothing's dyin'. A week after the story, I traveled 70 miles east of the original site/ There was these shells floating all over the top of the water. Hundreds of thousands of them. They were empty because they were dead. I've never seen a shell float in my life. Dead. A week after.

Four weeks ago when the oil was trajected to hit the west side of our peninsula. I was so mad after I went down to Pascaloocha and seeing what wasn't being done there, that I got in my boat -- my dime, my time, -- and I took a trip. I was like (almost invited?) FOX national news on my boat. I traveled 10 miles from Red Pass to four bayous, to the east side of Grand Isle. Now the oil was trajected to hit that side of the peninsula.
30 miles! I did not run into one responder. I did not run into one piece of boom, hard or soft. 150 feet of sandbags on 150 miles stretch of shoreline.

This is unacceptable.

So, I decided on the way back, well let me just go out from the coast a little bit and see what's going on. I ran into oil 3/4 of mile off the coast. Not sheen. Crude. As I'm driving along back towards Red Pass (Pass or Path?) I look over the Gulf and I notice that there's big swarms of birds. That's not unusual. I figured they was diving on bait. But what where they diving into oil sheen? Because birds don't know any better. We're driving out towards the birds. I wanted to see what they were diving into. I wanted to know. As we get out to the birds, I don't know if you've been out on the water much, if you've seen a big school of fish. They have like a boil on the water. It looks like a pot boiling. The fish boil the water with their moves. As we drove into it, there was big Bull Reds (Bull Mouths?) with their mouths on top of the water , laying sideways , swimming upside down in a circle. Again, hundreds of thousands of them, school after school after school. They were dying. They were so disoriented that they were running into the side of my boat.

(audience member asks why the news isn't down there.)

That's a real good question. Fox national news swears it's on their website, but I've search it up and down. I've even, you know what. I've got the camera man's phone number in my purse right there. we can call him after and find out exactly where it's at. I've already been asking for it over and over again.

(applause)

And they won't give it to me. You know what? Everybody saying a "media blackout," "a media blackout." Yes ma'am there is a media blackout. Um. Sydney, Australia "60 minutes" came over and they did a real nice piece. I watched it on their website. The transcript is still there. 24 hours after the video hit the website, it disappeared.

You know, as far as the Fisherman can catch shrimp elsewhere comment, I want to make something real clear. We have bee fighting imports and regulations for the last 20 years. They have regulated us to the point as Commercial Fisherman, that my husband personally has seven different permits. The only thing that my husband does not do is oyster. So, if there is shrimp somewhere else, or we can use gill net or whatever we need to do in order to provide a food source for this country, a natural way to feed people, then somebody point me in that direction and let me know where it is, 'cause I've looked all over the place.

I came back here four and a half years ago and rebuilt on dirt because this is my home and I love Louisiana . I live right out in the middle of nowhere, boondocks. The bottom line here is, that if the country does not stand up and say "NO MORE!" we must take action. we cannot sit back, and if this stuff does not stop guys, this is gonna go global. It will destroy 1/3 of the world's water. Bank on it. They do not stop this, ever ocean is connected. It will go on and on and on as my daughter says "infinity+2"

Enoughs enough.

I'll take any questions after. Thank you for listening.


(Supernova again - if you listening and copy doesn't jibe le me know under the post and I can correct it in the next hour. I wasn't sure about the part where she said she took her boat out on the water, if she was saying that she took a FOX NEWS person out with her. That's what I get, with the story about the missing video, but I need help verifying.

It really sounds like she's a person who is a re pub who has seen, is seeing the light re: corporate ownership of our society.)

Cracks Show BP Battled Well Two Months Before Blast

Bloomberg.com via Cryptogon.com:

By Alison Fitzgerald and Joe Carroll

June 17 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc was struggling to seal cracks in its Macondo well as far back as February, more than two months before an explosion killed 11 and spewed oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

It took 10 days to plug the first cracks, according to reports BP filed with the Minerals Management Service that were later delivered to congressional investigators. Cracks in the surrounding rock continued to complicate the drilling operation during the ensuing weeks. Left unsealed, they can allow explosive natural gas to rush up the shaft.

“Once they realized they had oil down there, all the decisions they made were designed to get that oil at the lowest cost,” said Peter Galvin of the Center for Biological Diversity, which has been working with congressional investigators probing the disaster. “It’s been a doomed voyage from the beginning.”

BP didn’t respond to calls and e-mails seeking comment. The company’s shares rose 22 pence to 359 pence today in London after the company struck a deal with the Obama administration yesterday to establish a $20 billion fund to pay cleanup costs and compensation. BP has lost 45 percent of its market value since the catastrophe.

On Feb. 13, BP told the minerals service it was trying to seal cracks in the well about 40 miles (64 kilometers) off the Louisiana coast, drilling documents obtained by Bloomberg show. Investigators are still trying to determine whether the fissures played a role in the disaster.

‘Cement Squeeze’

The company attempted a “cement squeeze,” which involves pumping cement to seal the fissures, according to a well activity report. Over the following week the company made repeated attempts to plug cracks that were draining expensive drilling fluid, known as “mud,” into the surrounding rocks.

BP used three different substances to plug the holes before succeeding, the documents show.

“Most of the time you do a squeeze and then let it dry and you’re done,” said John Wang, an assistant professor of petroleum and natural gas engineering at Penn State in University Park, Pennsylvania. “It dries within a few hours.”

Repeated squeeze attempts are unusual and may indicate rig workers are using the wrong kind of cement, Wang said.

Grappling Engineers

BP Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward and other top executives were ignorant of the difficulties the company’s engineers were grappling with in the well before the explosion, U.S. Representative Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said today during a hearing in Washington.

“We could find no evidence that you paid any attention to the tremendous risk BP was taking,” Waxman said as Hayward waited to testify. “There is not a single e-mail or document that you paid the slightest attention to the dangers at this well.”

BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles and exploration chief Andy Inglis “were apparently oblivious to what was happening,” said Waxman, a California Democrat. “BP’s corporate complacency is astonishing.”

In early March, BP told the minerals agency the company was having trouble maintaining control of surging natural gas, according to e-mails released May 30 by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is investigating the spill.

Gas Surges

While gas surges are common in oil drilling, companies have abandoned wells if they determine the risk is too high. When a Gulf well known as Blackbeard threatened to blow out in 2006, Exxon Mobil Corp. shut the project down.

“We don’t proceed if we cannot do so safely,” Exxon Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson told a House Energy and Commerce committee panel on June 15.

On March 10, BP executive Scherie Douglas e-mailed Frank Patton, the mineral service’s drilling engineer for the New Orleans district, telling him: “We’re in the midst of a well control situation.”

The incident was a “showstopper,” said Robert Bea, an engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who has consulted with the Interior Department on offshore drilling safety. “They damn near blew up the rig.”

BP's Deepwater Horizon Registered in Marshall Islands

LATimes.com:

Foreign flagging of offshore rigs skirts U.S. safety rules

The Marshall Islands, not the U.S., had the main responsibility for safety inspections on the Deepwater Horizon.

By Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger, Tribune Washington Bureau

June 14, 2010 | 7:28 p.m.

Reporting from Washington —

The Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico was built in South Korea. It was operated by a Swiss company under contract to a British oil firm. Primary responsibility for safety and other inspections rested not with the U.S. government but with the Republic of the Marshall Islands — a tiny, impoverished nation in the Pacific Ocean.

And the Marshall Islands, a maze of tiny atolls, many smaller than the ill-fated oil rig, outsourced many of its responsibilities to private companies.

Now, as the government tries to figure out what went wrong in the worst environmental catastrophe in U.S. history, this international patchwork of divided authority and sometimes conflicting priorities is emerging as a crucial underlying factor in the explosion of the rig.

Under International law, offshore oil rigs like the Deepwater Horizon are treated as ships, and companies are allowed to "register" them in unlikely places such as the Marshall Islands, Panama and Liberia — reducing the U.S. government's role in inspecting and enforcing safety and other standards.

"Today, these oil rigs can operate under different, very minimal standards of inspection established by international maritime treaties," said Rep. James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.), chairman of the House Transportation Committee.

Some offshore drilling experts, as well as some survivors of the explosion that led to the massive spill, say foreign registration also permitted a confusing command structure and understaffing — factors that may have contributed to the disaster.

Senior members of Congress — including Oberstar and House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick J. Rahall II (D-W.Va.) — have begun looking into the inspection and staffing issues. The House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation will hold a hearing Thursday on foreign-flagged rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.

Different types of rigs are classified differently, and the Marshall Islands assigned the Deepwater Horizon to a category that permitted lower staffing levels.

"Over the years, the manning dwindled down and down," said Douglas Harold Brown, chief mechanic aboard the Deepwater Horizon, who had been assigned to the floating drilling rig since shortly after it was manufactured in 2000. "I believe that safety was compromised by this," he said in an interview.

Brown's lawyer and others say the Marshall Islands licensed the Deepwater Horizon in a way that allowed rig operator Transocean Ltd. to place an oil drilling expert — the so-called offshore installation manager — ahead of a licensed sea captain in making decisions on the day of the explosion.

The dual command structure created confusion that delayed an effective response to the growing crisis aboard the Deepwater Horizon, he and others allege.

Officials at Transocean and the Marshall Islands reject the claims. They say they fulfilled all requirements of the law and met the highest industry standards, and those of the Coast Guard.

Brian Kennedy, a spokesman for Transocean, called the complaints "egregiously unfounded and inflammatory." The disorganization reported by crew members who survived the Deepwater Horizon explosion was the result of a tragic and unexpected disaster, not deficiencies in manning or safety standards on the part of Transocean, Kennedy said.

"At the end of the day, I think the fact that 115 people got off the rig that night will be viewed as a testament to the training, skill and heroic acts of dozens of crew members," he said.

The Marshall Islands deputy maritime minister, Thomas Heinan, said the manning requirements aboard the Deepwater Horizon were "equal to those of the U.S. and in accordance with international standards."

A deepwater oil rig floats above the well, connected by thousands of feet of pipe, and is kept in position by thrusters and elaborate navigational systems.

Since World War II, thousands of ships and rigs from the U.S. and other industrialized countries have been registered in less-developed nations like the Marshall Islands.

Some members of Congress are expressing concern about the Marshall Islands and other countries that outsource their inspection responsibilities to private companies. Coast Guard officials confirm that more rigorous inspection procedures apply to the relatively small number of rigs registered in the U.S.

A foreign vessel will be reviewed by the Coast Guard, but the inspection is relatively cursory, relying on inspection reports prepared by outside firms that have been paid directly by the owners of the vessel.

The federal Minerals Management Service, which also has a role in overseeing offshore oil operations, deals only with issues "below the waterline" of the floating rig. It was not responsible for rig staffing, command structure or other above-water operations.

John Konrad, a licensed captain who publishes a maritime blog and is consulting with survivors, said oil rigs should be under the command of licensed sea captains.

"On the Deepwater Horizon you had the guy who does the drilling plans able to make the call on safety," Konrad said.

Such dual command structures would not be accepted for U.S.-flagged operations, experts say.

The Deepwater Horizon captain testified to investigators last month that he conferred with the drilling manager before he attempted to disconnect the rig. By the time a crew member decided on his own to push the emergency disconnect, it was too late.

Kennedy, the spokesman for Transocean, said, "Having two complementary positions that reflect the dual functionality of the rig, as the Horizon did, provides a clear but collaborative chain of command that has been employed by the industry for decades."

But Steven Gordon, a maritime lawyer in Houston representing Brown, six other survivors and the family of one of the 11 workers killed in the blast, said, "This course of action cost men their lives."

"It led to a jumble of disorganization on the Deepwater Horizon at the moment when organization was needed the most," he said.

BP contains bad news the old fashioned way—

news.yahoo.com:

Deepwater Horizon survivors allege they were kept in seclusion after rig explosion, coerced into signing legal waivers

Fri May 21, 5:20 pm ET

According to two surviving crew members of the Deepwater Horizon, oil workers from the rig were held in seclusion on the open water for up to two days after the April 20 explosion, while attorneys attempted to convince them to sign legal documents stating that they were unharmed by the incident. The men claim that they were forbidden from having any contact with concerned loved ones during that time, and were told they would not be able to go home until they signed the documents they were presented with.

Stephen Davis, a seven-year veteran of drilling-rig work from San Antonio, told The Guardian's Suzanne Goldenberg today that he was held on a boat for 36 to 40 hours after diving into the Gulf from the burning rig and swimming to safety. Once on a crew boat, Davis said, he and the others were denied access to satellite phones or radio to get in touch with their families, many of whom were frantic to find out whether or not they were OK.

Davis' attorney told Goldenberg that while on the boat, his client and the others were told to sign the statements presented to them by attorneys for Transocean — the firm that owned the Deepwater Horizon — or they wouldn't be allowed to go home. After being awake for 50 harrowing hours, Davis caved and signed the papers. He said most of the others did as well.

Davis' story seems to be backed up by a similar account given to NPR by another Deepwater Horizon crewmember earlier in the month. Christopher Choy, a roustabout on the rig, said that the lawyers gathered the survivors in the galley of a boat and said, "'You need to sign these. Nobody's getting off here until we get one from everybody.' ... At the bottom, it said something about, like, you know, this can be used as evidence in court and all that. I told them, 'I'm not signing it.' "

Choy said that once he was finally allowed to get off the boat, he was shuttled to a hotel, where he met up with his wife. At the hotel, representatives from Transocean confronted him again and badgered him to sign the statement. Exhausted, traumatized and desperate to go home, Choy said that he finally relented and signed.

Choy's lawyer, Steve Gordon, is incensed over what transpired in the hours after the explosion. He, along with other attorneys for Deepwater Horizon workers, is trying to get the documents voided by the courts.

"It's absurd. It's unacceptable, and it's irresponsible," Gordon told NPR.

— Brett Michael Dykes is a national affairs writer for Yahoo! News.