Most recently, NBC reporter Tom Costello interviewed Doug Suttles , who is the BP Exploration and Production Chief Operating Officer, on the “Today” show concerning the Deepwater Horizon oil spill within the Gulf of Mexico. Specifically, he asked Suttles for his response to the rapidly circulating info that oil spill cleanup technology is woefully behind the times, making the oil spill cleanup painfully inefficient. Suttles’ response is that it takes oil spills to advance the cleanup technology. “There are so few big spills,” he told Costello, “and events haven’t driven the technology change.”
The right cleanup technology is only made by BP with an oil spill?
The lack of foresight by BP on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill – or lack of the right kind of motivation to invest in preventative oil spill cleanup technology actions – is obvious. What is also obvious is the financial effect that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has had and will continue to have on BP and the economies of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. According to NBC New York, BP has already spent $1.6 billion on the spill response and related claims. Projections for any and all of the future costs and liabilities extend to the $60 to $70 billion range, although the final figure will depend upon knowing the full extent of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill damage. This doesn’t consider BP’s loss in share price. Their market capitalization has fallen around 50 percent. It’s easy to imagine BP CEO Tony Hayward barking “I need money now” at the moon, but local economies need it even more. The cost to local economies that were very damaged by the oil spill will even reach to the billions of dollars, experts predict.
I really am the Gulf of Mexico walrus
It would seem that dealing with any oil spill isn’t a priority for BP. Otherwise they would have been prepared for this spill. The Associated Press reports the 582-page regional oil spill cleanup plan for the Gulf of Mexico region and a shorter document addressing the specific Deepwater Horizon event are littered with “mistakes and erroneous assumptions.” Among these are a whole bunch of incorrect contact info for consulted marine life specialists (one of whom really died in 2005, four years before the larger document was filed). But not being able to contact sources concerning the specific needs of marine life within the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico is possibly for the best, as BP is claiming the walrus is found there. Walruses tend to live in cold-water areas like Alaska, not within the Gulf of Mexico. In a weak defense, Doug Suttles claimed the document specifically labeled for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill addressed “all impacted species,” rather than ones that actually inhabit the region. This is illogical on BP’s part.
Not enough oil spills to advance technology? Do the math, BP
According to Wikipedia (which is hardly a super-secret source of information), there have been 49 recorded oil spills worldwide given that the year 2000. Of those, 24 occurred in the United States. If that appears to be “too few oil spills,” then BP needs to go back to school for a healthy dose of perspective and basic reasoning skills. Look into the Rachel Maddow video below if you need help, BP – she points out some of the major U.S. spills that have occurred on a map.
Citations
NBC New York
nbcnewyork.com/news/breaking/BP_has_plenty_of_money_to_pay_spill_damages-96366344.html
NOLA.com
nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/06/as_bp_promised_the_walruses_ar.html
Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_spills
