BP's Response Plan Was A Joke, Group Charges

BP's official response plan for oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico doesn't actually say anything about how the company would stop a blowout, wildly underestimates the worst-case scenario, and lists walruses among the Gulf's "Sensitive Biological Resources" -- leading an environmental group to suggest Monday that no regulator could possibly have seriously examined it.

"This response plan is not worth the paper it is written on," PEER board member Rick Steiner, a marine professor, said in a statement. "Incredibly, this voluminous document never once discusses how to stop a deep water blowout even though BP has significant deep water operations in the Gulf."

The entire 582-page plan, titled "BP Gulf of Mexico Regional Oil Spill Response Plan" and dated June 30, 2009, can be found here; the section on "worst case" scenarios is here.

The plan also doesn't contain information about tracking sub-surface oil plumes from deep-water blowouts.

Meanwhile, it gives a website for a Japanese home shopping site as the link to one of the "primary equipment providers for BP in the Gulf of Mexico Region [for]rapid deployment of spill response resources on a 24 hour, 7 days a week basis".

One part of the plan that does seem to be very much in force is the guide for public statements, directing company spokesmen not to make statements that contain any of the following:

a) Speculations concerning liability for the spill or its legal consequences.

b) Speculations regarding the cause of the spill. An extended inquiry may be needed to determine the actual cause, and legal liability could be affected by what is said.

c) Estimates of damage and/or value expressed in dollars, production statistics, sales volume, or insurance coverage.

d) Estimates of how long cleanup will take or cleanup costs.

e) Promises that property, ecology, or anything else will be restored to normal.

Comments

[taxfree]

02:52 AM on 06/16/2010

BP has made too many mistakes.

President Obama should have some competent
party take over that company and use every possible
suggestion to blocking that well.

There is a plan that might work.

It took me since May 10, 2010 to have BP take a look
at it on June 14, 2010.

It is my most profound belief that what is offered at

http://www.taxrefusal.com/saving-the-gulf.html

is probably the only tactic that might have a chance of
ending the torrent of oil now fouling the Gulf Of Mexico.

Daniel J. Lavigne, Founder, IHH
(International Humanity House)

[bobbyvassallo]

08:52 PM on 07/16/2010

Stick to humanity because you are way off base here. It may be your profound belief, but because you believe it, doesn't make it correct. The only competent party would be another oil company, and all the oil companies are lending assistance and advice already. NO ONE benefits from any of this; no one! Like the OJ case, anyone who gets close to this, gets dirty. Obama has done the absolute right thing in staying low-key, letting the oil companies sort it out.

Leave BP alone and let them plug this well, or stem the flow. Then jump on them. They are a little busy right now. You are like someone asking a guy carrying sixteen packages for a match...
bobby vassallo

[UphillSkier]

05:01 PM on 05/25/2010

I think that targeting a giant oil corporation is poorly thought out. I don't believe Shell or ExonMobil are any better. It's what they all do.

It's lax government regulation that is the actual problem. Corporations can be expected to always shortchange safety and environmental protection (anything that costs them money and doesn't lead to greater profits) -this behavour is totally UNSURPRISING. If we're going to have capitalism, we're going to have to try and rein in the pirates, bandits and corporate CEO's.

Naturally all the de-regulation under recent presidencies have left us with regulatory agencies which are just shells of what they need to be, often with the same individuals who have prostituted themselves to the corporations, in charge of "running the regulation" (just nodding their dumb heads at fine luncheons and overseeing the fraud -while it goes unremarked that there is no regulation at all).

Then there's a crisis. OMG !! We do need a government, we need someone committed to the public interest.

[johnjohn1234]

04:41 PM on 05/25/2010

Boycott BP. If no one is buying their gas and not coming into the minimart for the junk food, don't you think they will get this fixed PDQ?

[research]

12:30 PM on 05/25/2010

Enron ended up, not paying much, so BP's not worried.

Seize control of all local BP resources now. The Republic has the legal and moral right to take temporary control of a criminal enterprise, we do it all the time.

Do the democratic Republics of the world, rule, or do the multinational corporations?

Democracy or plutocracy.

choose.

[LiveLoad]

10:32 AM on 05/25/2010

Nothing but cover-ups, lies, mis-direction, red herrings, red tape, stalling, spin, damage control and more spin since this disaster occured. We need some type of SOX style regulation of the oil and gas industry. We need to hold each an every officer in each one of the companies involved criminally responsible. If this is a case of gross negligence, which all indicators point to it being, their U.S. assets should all be seized and liquidated to pay for the damage, cleanup, and capping efforts. Of course, I'm dreaming because our world just doesn't work that way. There will be a "fall guy" and all the rest will simply re-paint their signs and set up shop again. Business as usual.

[Bama Girl]

10:24 AM on 05/25/2010

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/25/abc-news-goes-underwater_n_588555.html

[Bama Girl]

10:20 AM on 05/25/2010

haha apparently it will now nly post to this comment section....... sorry you guys......

[Bama Girl]

10:19 AM on 05/25/2010

http://monkeyfister.blogspot.com/2010/05/major-change-down-below.html

[KeysDan]

10:14 AM on 05/25/2010

Why is the criminal BP the pilot and God co-pilot? Note the date on the BP official response plan, June 30 2009. Note the date of Obama's "there are no spills anymore", one month before the spill, Note the date of Obama's drill baby drill program that beats the wacko Palin, one month before the spill; note the date of Obama saying we will continue to drill in the Gulf, two weeks after the spill; note the date of the moratorium on drilling, three weeks after the spill; note the date of discovery that the moratorium is not quite what was thought, and filled with weasel language, May 24.

[jeb50]

10:08 AM on 05/25/2010

Just keep reelecting those incumbents.

[BoiseLib]

09:59 AM on 05/25/2010

Libertarians will say this is just the "Free Market" at work.

[Bama Girl]

09:58 AM on 05/25/2010

someone please tell me what this website is saying is not true and its not why they cut the live feed??????? PLEASE.........

http://monkeyfister.blogspot.com/2010/05/major-change-down-below.html

[blac13]

09:45 AM on 05/25/2010

Golf Balls and Tires.

[modrocker]

09:41 AM on 05/25/2010

This horrifying debacle has closed the book on two issues in my mind.
1. The corporate world is in charge and government is their servant. The Obama Administration and Congress seem to have no power at all to stem the damage that they do and will continue to do. Cheney/Bush didn't even pretend to be anything other than bedmates to corporate America. At least the heavy Republican contributing corporations.

2. If anyone has any doubts that global warming and other environmental concerns are man-made, this should put that to rest. We haven't even begun to see the devastation that this single incident is going to cause. Of course, the GOP will always find a way to argue the barely possible. When you have a Limbaugh uttering the classic line of ignorance "Let the ocean take care of the spill " and people still put faith in his verbal droppings, you can pretty much kiss any notion of hope goodbye.

But that's it, corporations are in charge and have no consideration of the damage they do. And reward themselves mightily for it. We count for nothing.

[rascalov]

10:15 AM on 05/25/2010

You speak the truth. Speak it loudly. Fanned.

[Countess]

09:13 AM on 05/25/2010

This is what it looks like when you let your country be run by the corporations. An impotent federal government appearing almost indifferent patiently waiting until the corporation offers up a solution to a massive gushing toxic disaster caused by corrupt regulators appointed by corrupt politicians whose ideology was to weaken all environmental regulations and enforcement.