Dash wrote:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/how-soon-until-the-free-m_b_598305.html
Regarding that original article... the author is apparently an idiot...
He states:
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Predictably, BP has lied or misrepresented the truth all along the way.
* Before a drop of oil was spilled, they deliberately refused to invest in crucial failsafe mechanisms to prevent this sort of tragedy in the first place.
Yet, if you follow his own link, it talks about the availability of two different types of casing, one that is more secure, and one that is more flexible in application and reuse. They chose the more flexible (higher short term cost, supposedly less expensive long term..) option. From reading the article, the problem is not with the type of casing used, but in the mistakes made while inserting the casing, such as insufficient testing by the company doing the work, and/or poor management by the staff on board. However, none of that supports his statement. Continuing to the next item...
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Following the rig explosion, they detained workers who witnessed the Deepwater Horizon explosion.
Which is rich, considering he uses as evidence of this misstatement, his own previous erroneous statement. However, if you continue to follow the links to the original article, it was not BP that detained the workers, as he clearly states, but the company that actually owns and leases the rig to BP, Transocean.
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They consistently low-balled the estimated volume of oil leaking from the riser and blowout preventer, arguably to avoid harsher liability.
And again, if you follow the link he provided, it states clearly the estimate that was being used by BP was also from the Coast Guard, and the "evidence" being provided it is low is the opinion of a professor at Purdue (which apparently the author of that article cannot spell correctly). May or may not be accurate, but BP and Coast Guard have several times upped the estimates being released as their cameras have captured more images.
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They brazenly refused to stop using Corexit despite evidence that it was more toxic than other chemical dispersants.
And once, if you follow the links to the source article, you find these little tidbits...
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BP was responding to an EPA directive Thursday that gave BP 24 hours to identify a less toxic alternative to Corexit -- and 72 hours to start using it -- or provide the Coast Guard and EPA with a "detailed description of the alternative dispersants investigated, and the reason they believe those products did not meet the required standards."
BP spokesman Scott Dean said Friday that BP had replied with a letter "that outlines our findings that none of the alternative products on the EPA's National Contingency Plan Product Schedule list meets all three criteria specified in yesterday's directive for availability, toxicity and effectiveness."
Dean noted that "Corexit is an EPA pre-approved, effective, low-toxicity dispersant that is readily available, and we continue to use it."
So, the 'regulation' that lists what chemicals are to be used by the federal government also imposes other limitations, and with all those taken into account, only 1 product meets the standard. Of course, there are some valid questions about whether the dispersant should even be used, but guess who made that call? It wasn't BP.
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They ordered federal Coast Guard officers to shoo the press away from tar-balled beaches.
Um, no, they didn't. He thinks they did because he has lost the capacity to read his own links. The USCG even offered a response to the article he based his stupidity upon (bold is mine)...
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Neither BP nor the U.S. Coast Guard, who are responding to the spill, have any rules in place that would prohibit media access to impacted areas and we were disappointed to hear of this incident. In fact, media has been actively embedded and allowed to cover response efforts since this response began, with more than 400 embeds aboard boats and aircraft to date. Just today 16 members of the press observed clean-up operations on a vessel out of Venice, La. The only time anyone would be asked to move from an area would be if there were safety concerns, or they were interfering with response operations. This did occur off South Pass Monday which may have caused the confusion reported by CBS. The entities involved in the Deepwater Horizon/BP Response have already reiterated these media access guidelines to personnel involved in the response and hope it prevents any future confusion.
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This week, they not only denied the existence of massive underwater plumes of dispersed oil
Initially, yes, BP did say that the oil is on the surface and not in plumes under water, since well, oil floats. They have also said, though you won't find it on the Huffington Post, they are working with the scientists making the claims to determine their existence, and how to deal with them. There are also statements such as this gem from his Huffington article, which is corroborated in several articles looking at the nature of the plumes and how they were created:
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A third scientist, LSU chemist Ed Overton, said simple physics sides with BP's Hayward. Since oil is lighter than water, Overton said it is unlikely to stay below the surface for long.
But Hogarth and Cowan said BP's use of chemical dispersants to break up the oil before it reaches the surface could reduce its buoyancy, keeping it in deeper water.
Again... those dispersants...
However, don't take this as support or an apology for BP... I was just following the OP's linked article links.