Gulf Oil Spill: How Bad Is It?

In the video below from Bloomberg News, oil indistry "insider" Matthew Simmons, chair of the Ocean Energy Institute and a former energy advisor to Geoerge W. Bush, postulates a very frightening assessment of the Gulf oil spill.

He asserts that independent scientific evidence now indicates the leak is currently gushing 120,000 barrels per day, and suggests an "oil lake" beneath the water could be covering as much as 40% of the entire Gulf of Mexico.

His view is that nothing short of a "small" nuclear detonation will stop the Gulf oil leak. The alternative, according to Mr. Simmons, is 120,000 barrels of oil per day leaking into the Gulf of Mexico "for the next 25 to 30 years."

I would ordinarily be hesitant to cite a view that is so "out there" on this blog (even from a credible news outlet, such as Bloomberg). Frankly, were it not for BP's consistent understatements on the severity of this leak from the outset, all proven woefull wrong, I would not have been inclined to do so.

Unfortunately, the "outliers" have been factually correct with disturbing regularity since the initial days of this catastrophe.

Let us hope that on these points, Mr. Simmons is dead wrong.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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The Oil Counterspin Continues

CNN: Not all the oil in the Gulf is coming from BP's spill

Yes, really.

It's coming from ships that leak oil and from Mother Nature herself.

It must be true. We heard it on CNN.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

Visit our Toronto Law Firm website: www.wiselaw.net

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Oil Catastrophe Updated: June 9, 2010 Aerial Video

Via: Florida Oil Spill Law

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

Visit our Toronto Law Firm website: www.wiselaw.net

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Video: BP Oil Slick

An aerial view of the BP oil slick, ground zero.

More on the underlying political causes of this disaster from Sex, Lies and Oil Spills, by Robert F. Kennedy Jr:

..The absence of an acoustical regulator -- a remotely triggered dead man's switch that might have closed off BP's gushing pipe at its sea floor wellhead when the manual switch failed (the fire and explosion on the drilling platform may have prevented the dying workers from pushing the button) -- was directly attributable to industry pandering by the Bush team. Acoustic switches are required by law for all offshore rigs off Brazil and in Norway's North Sea operations. BP uses the device voluntarily in Britain's North Sea and elsewhere in the world as do other big players like Holland's Shell and France's Total. In 2000, the Minerals Management Service while weighing a comprehensive rulemaking for drilling safety, deemed the acoustic mechanism "essential" and proposed to mandate the mechanism on all gulf rigs.

Then, between January and March of 2001, incoming Vice President Dick Cheney conducted secret meetings with over 100 oil industry officials allowing them to draft a wish list of industry demands to be implemented by the oil friendly administration. Cheney also used that time to re-staff the Minerals Management Service with oil industry toadies including a cabal of his Wyoming carbon cronies. In 2003, newly reconstituted Minerals Management Service genuflected to the oil cartel by recommending the removal of the proposed requirement for acoustic switches. The Minerals Management Service's 2003 study concluded that "acoustic systems are not recommended because they tend to be very costly."

The acoustic trigger costs about $500,000. Estimated costs of the oil spill to Gulf Coast residents are now upward of $14 billion to gulf state communities. Bush's 2005 energy bill officially dropped the requirement for the acoustic switch off devices explaining that the industry's existing practices are "failsafe."

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

Visit our Toronto Law Firm website: www.wiselaw.net

EMPLOYMENT LAW • CIVIL LITIGATION • WILLS AND ESTATES • FAMILY LAW & DIVORCE

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