Or what?

[vaskidmark]

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/national/article/coast_guard_tells_bp_to_speed_up_containment_pace/350732/

Coast Guard gives BP 48 hours to speed up containment efforts

ORANGE BEACH, Ala.  — The federal government has given BP until the end of the weekend to find ways to speed up efforts to contain huge amounts of oil gushing from a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a letter released Saturday, as large globs of brown crude coated Alabama’s white sand beaches.

Coast Guard Rear Adm. James A. Watson sent a letter to BP officials on Friday expressing frustration with the overall pace of the effort and ordered the company to identify ways to expedite the process in the coming says.

“Recognizing the complexity of this challenge, every effort must be expended to speed up the process,“ Watson wrote in the letter, sent to Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer.

BP has struggled with several efforts to contain the oil. The latest cap installed on the blown-out well is capturing about 650,000 gallons of oil a day, but large quantities are still spilling into the sea.

Scientists have estimated that anywhere between about 40 million gallons to 109 million gallons of oil have gushed into the Gulf since a drilling rig exploded April 20, killing 11 workers and triggering the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

The Coast Guard initially sent a letter to BP on Wednesday asking for more details on its plans to contain the oil. BP responded, saying a new system to trap oil spewing from the well should be complete by mid-July.

That system’s new design is meant to better withstand the force of hurricanes and could capture about 2 million gallons of oil daily when fully built, the oil giant said.

But Watson said he was concerned that BP’s plans didn’t maximize resources or “go far enough to mobilize redundant resources” in the event of an equipment failure or another problem.

“BP must identify in the next 48 hours additional leak containment capacity that could be operationalized and expedited to avoid the continued discharge of oil,“ Watson wrote.

BP spokesman Jon Pack said the company received Watson’s letter and would respond to it as soon as possible.

The letter and deadline comes just before President Barack Obama is set to visit the Gulf Coast on Monday and Tuesday. On Saturday, Obama reassured British Prime Minister David Cameron that his frustration over the oil spill in the Gulf was not an attack on Britain, the British government said.

The two leaders spoke by phone for 30 minutes Saturday to soothe trans-Atlantic tensions over the huge spill. Cameron also has been under pressure to get Obama to tone down the criticism fearing it will hurt the millions of British retirees that hold BP stock.

Cameron’s office said the prime minister “expressed his sadness at the ongoing human and environmental catastrophe,“ but stressed BP’s economic importance to Britain, the U.S. and other countries.

It said Obama recognized that BP — which he has pointedly referred to in public by its former name, British Petroleum — is a multinational company, “and that frustrations about the oil spill had nothing to do with national identity.“ Obama said he had no interest in undermining BP’s value. The company’s stock has lost 40 percent of its value since the oil rig fire on April 20 that unleashed the United States’ worst oil spill.

Along the Gulf Coast, Alabama’s beaches took their worst hit yet from the oil spill on Saturday as chocolate-colored oil slathered beaches along the coast.

During a flight over the Gulf, Sean Brumley, an aerial spotter, said he saw an oily sheen and brown patches of oil floating for miles off the Alabama coast. Boats trying to remove the oil before it hit the coast worked about three miles out.

“The Gulf looks like it has chicken pox,“ Brumley said.

On the beach, pools of crude oil as much as 4 inches deep hit the beach in waves, and the surf was a dark, ugly shade of brown. No one was in the water, and the beaches that normally are packed with people this time of year were virtually deserted.

Stinking, dark piles of oil dried in the hot sun, extending as much as 12 feet from the water’s edge for as far as the eye could see.

“I didn’t think it was a big deal yesterday. This is awful,“ said Shelley Booker of Shreveport, La., who was staying in a condominium with her teenage daughter and six of her friends.

The beaches in Florida’s Panhandle were largely free of tar Saturday — but signs of the fight against the spill were everywhere. Officials have said that two wide sections of the slick were just off the shoreline.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Jon Jarvis, director of the National Park Service, rallied volunteers and employees at Gulf Islands National Seashore on Saturday, preparing them for a long fight against the oil.

But the slow movement of the oil and constant preparations for its arrival were taking toll on beach residents.

“It’s like waiting for someone to die from cancer,“ said Greg Hall, who walks the beach each morning.

What are they going to do if BP does not meet their expectation?  Which, BTW, I find absurd in the first place.

I'd like to keep the thread drift away from politics if at all possible, but know how hard it is not to comment on the railings and thrashings of the administration and especially it's leader.

Yeah, the government could try to get all of BP's contracts with whoever is now working on the project cancelled and turn them into government contracts - if those companies are willing to work for the government.  Or they could federalize the National Guard and put troops on the third shift operating skimmer boats, vacuum rigs, and all that technical stuff - if the NG knew how to do any of that stuff and had the equipment in the first place.

The one thing they can't do is nationalize BP's operations in the USA - that would just give them ownership of the problem and eliminate having someone to blame.

So, other than tantrum theatrics, what's the point of an ultimatum?

stay safe.

[AZRedhawk44]

what's the point of an ultimatum?

Individual culpability.

Sic the federal law-dogs on specific individuals, operating under the corporate liability umbrella, so they they are personally hurt by the actions of underlings (or even their own actions).

The government can't really do anything against "BP."

They can ruin the life of "John Smith," that guy who is the chief drilling pressure researcher.  Or "Joe Richardson," that guy who is the redundant valve safety designer.  Or "Larry Underhill," that guy who is the COO for BP and responsible for overseeing the actions of Joe Richardson and John Smith.

[vaskidmark]

OK.  Fine.

But you still have oil gushing out of a hole in the water/land boundary and all sorts of stuff on the beaches which aint gonna get cleaned up any faster/better.

How does bankrupting a couple of folks help solve the issue?

stay safe.

[AZRedhawk44]

It doesn't.

But it makes BP look worse, and the US Government look better, which makes Obama look more responsible.  At least to the shallow observer.

You're right.  All it does is turn up the heat on particular individuals who could possibly be targeted with civil suits and criminal complaints.

Unless they are soul-less dopplegangers, they are already feeling plenty of heat and working their hardest to resolve the problem.

Frankly... the only people from FedGov who could possibly assist in this are probably submarine designers and NASA robotics engineers.  And even then... the Navy doesn't have subs that operate at 5000 feet, and NASA has yet to harvest any meaningful minerals from celestial bodies.  BP has a history of mining at 5000 feet below sea level.  If they don't have the expertise, then someone else in the industry does, and they can beg/borrow/steal that guy or a rival corps' technology to seal this thing.

I think Uncle Sugar should take a peek at the patent office, personally.  If some other corp could seal this more quickly, then their tech is implemented and the mineral rights to that well are transferred from BP to them as payment.

If no one has demonstrated tech able to solve this, then Uncle Sugar needs to shut up and get out of the way.  BP is currently harvesting perhaps half of the spill with a prototype device, and building a new device lickety-split that can get it all.  No one on Earth can do better than that, at this point.

Not everything in life is subject to concepts such as "liability" and "insurance" and "safe."

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

when i ran bars and restaurants i hired a lotta college kids. periodically one would be smarter than us and give a lot of grief by twelling us how we SHOULD  be doing things. the way to stop that was in the middle of a slammed friday dinner rush take off your coat hand it to him and say "you do it!  show me! i'll take your tables"  never had to do it twice.  bp should tell em to pound sand.  individual managers need to check into a mental health facility for the stress and call their bluff.

[Scout26]

The .gov just shows its impotence with such bluster.   I'm pretty sure BP has just about everyone except the gas station cashiers working on solving the problem (and they may be even asking those kids).

What, they think The Chosen One/Fearless Leader will walk on the water to where the leak is and then reach down (or have his buddy Aquaman) and turn off the oil ??

BP should throw in the towel and say "We give, we've done everything we can think of and then some, Were turning this over to the government to solve."

Then sit back and watch the show.....

(CS&D was posting at the same time I was typing....Great minds think alike, so what's our excuse ??  )

[DonTron]

Skidmark,

It's totally political. If BP comes up with a new trick in the next 48 hours, then Obama can take credit when he visits Mon/Tues.  If they don't, he can take a harder stance.

The point of the ultimatum? Theatrics, as you said.

[280plus]

This reminds me of the time recently I replaced the oil fired furnace at the range. Well, unknown to me beforehand there was a problem (air leak) in the fuel system which gave me fits while I was trying to figure it out. try 75 feet of fuel line with numerous fittings. What made it worse was allllll the advice, suggestions and recommendations I received from a myriad of other range goers, including 3-4 looking over my shoulder as I tried to iron things out basically interfering more than helping. Problem at this particular range is a lot of aeronautical engineers go there due to our close proximity to Prat and Ham Stan to name a couple. One day the head of maintenance at the range says to me, "Do you realize how many engineers we have working on this?" I replied, "That's the problem, we have too many engineers involved." 

The problem finally turned up when I was once again tightening all the fittings and one of the flare nuts snapped off. It had been partially cracked around it's perimeter for ~ 20 years since the guy who put the first furnace in could not find it. 

[Hawkmoon]

More government theater. It reminds me of a case I was involved in about 30 years ago.

I was a staffer for a municipal public housing authority, with about 3500 units to take care of. One of our projects was a multi-building high-rise complex with a central boiler house. We had three boilers -- one of which was down at the start of the winter season because it was old and had a busted housing between the fire chamber and the water jacket. We were able to find only one source in the entire country to obtain replacement sections for the boiler, due to its age, and they had to be custom fabricated. The vendor estimated that it would take 6 to 8 weeks to make the sections, which then had to be shipped to us from a couple of states away, and then welded into place.

Some of the residents decided they didn't have enough heat -- even though two boilers were running fine, and the design of the system had been set up from the outset to have two boilers carrying the load and a third as redundant back-up. But ... the tenants brought in the legal aid group, who filed suit in the state housing court. The housing authority brought in as expert witnesses the engineer who designed the repairs, the contractor who had been hired to perform the work, and me -- the contracting officer for the project. We all testified exactly the same -- two boilers provided sufficient capacity, the repairs had been contracted and were being performed as expeditiously as possible, and the replacement parts had to be custom-made and would not be on site for another month to six weeks.

Undeterred by facts or logic, the judge ordered us to have the third boiler repaired and in service within three weeks.

Obviously, we didn't comply. And no sanctions ever fell on our heads. The motions had been gone through: Legal Aid could claim they had won an important victory in court. The court could say that they issued a fair and just decision to secure the (alleged) rights of the tenants. The fact that all the courtroom drama made absolutely no difference wasn't even secondary -- it probably wasn't even tertiary.

[taurusowner]

It's great posturing for BHO.  It can be a win-win for him if he plays it right.  On one hand if they do end up fixing it, he can claim it's because he said so and his great leadership.  If they fail, it will be a reason to enact more crippling social legislation that will riase gas prices, hurt a private business, and subdue more people into reliance on government.

Lest we forget, BHO and his pals have an endgame in mind.  Don't think for a minute that he has any intention of allowing oil companies to privately operate at will.  They can't let a good crisis go to waste.

[Sergeant Bob]

I'd like to keep the thread drift away from politics if at all possible, but know how hard it is not to comment on the railings and thrashings of the administration and especially it's leader.

As DonTron said,

Skidmark,

It's totally political. If BP comes up with a new trick in the next 48 hours, then Obama can take credit when he visits Mon/Tues.  If they don't, he can take a harder stance.

The point of the ultimatum? Theatrics, as you said.

The Anointed One is merely trying to appease the blood lust of his homey, Spike Lee, by "getting mad" (he wants to know "whose @ss to kick") so is taking a "tougher" stance against BP (which is officially the name of the company, "not British Petroleum".

[HankB]

Instead of establishing solution deadlines, why doesn't fed.gov just get a court order for the tide to go out and stay out until the problem is solved?

At least it would keep the beaches clean, right?

 

[Sergeant Bob]

Instead of establishing solution deadlines, why doesn't fed.gov just get a court order for the tide to go out and stay out until the problem is solved?

At least it would keep the beaches clean, right?

 

That shouldn't be a problem, after all, they can control at what time the sun sets and rises so tides should be easy.

[Cromlech]

...BP (which is officially the name of the company, "not British Petroleum".

Quite a few of our newspapers (well, the Daily Mail and the Telegraph at least) contain articles that are full of criticism for Obama and how they feel he is making this an anti-British thing. They generally bring up the Swiss-American Transocean (the operators of the rig) and the American Halliburton (responsible for cementing the pipeline seal) that are not getting what the columnists believe is their share of the pressure and blame.

That's why our PM has been in contact with Obama, trying to limit the damage to BP, and British Pensions that might suffer from the backlash.

[KD5NRH]

the Navy doesn't have subs that operate at 5000 feet,

They've got one, but it's in mothballs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathyscaphe_Trieste

Besides, given a choice on a major, critical project, do you want one of the world's most successful companies with access to several of the other companies that helped make them that successful, or the bunch of idiots who got Social Security where it is today?

[KD5NRH]

They generally bring up the Swiss-American Transocean

You know, I think BO might actually be dumb enough to start annoying the Swiss.  That could get interesting.

[RaspberrySurprise]

What will he do? He'll do what the UN does, issue an even more sternly worded ultimatum that will be ignored.

[MechAg94]

IMO, this is just another example of Obama not being part of the solution.  His solution to the problem is to put more pressure on BP, not put more effort into the fix from the govt side. 

[Scout26]

Lest we forget, BHO and his pals have an endgame in mind.  Don't think for a minute that he has any intention of allowing oil companies to privately operate at will.  They can't let a good crisis go to waste.

They will use this to push Cap and Tax.......

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

bingo!!!!