Deepwater Horizon: US Coast Guard's Improper Firefighting May Be Responsible For Sinking Rig That Led To Gulf Oil Spill Says New Report

treehugger.com:

A new report by The Center for Public Integrity reveals that, in the hours after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig caught on fire, the US Coast Guard failed to follow its own internal firefighting procedures, potentially causing the rig to sink and the riser pipe, from which the majority of the oil in the Gulf spill would begin flowing, to rupture.

Read the whole story: treehugger.com

Comments

[PharmaCan]

05:38 PM on 07/29/2010

If you read the entire article that is linked on Treehugger, it appears that the Coast Guard did what they were supposed to do, which is search and rescue. The operators of the rig were supposed to have qualified personnel and sufficient firefighting equipment on board to handle any emergency. The operators of the rig sent out an SOS asking for firefighters to respond, and private firefighting boats responded and did as they were asked by the operator - spray the rig with water.

The bottom line here seems to be that the Coast Guard wasn't charged with fighting the fire and that, in fact, they didn't fight the fire.

Read the whole article. This is just BP et al trying to shift the blame to anyone but themselves.

[suzc]

10:26 AM on 07/29/2010

OH, yeah. It was Obama's fault! We should have known!

[Scoppertop]

11:56 PM on 07/28/2010

Transocean already got paid millions more from their insurance claim than the rig was worth... so their insurance company would have to sue the Coast Guard's insurance company -- right.

[xlntcat]

03:19 AM on 07/29/2010

And if they sue the Coast Guard and win both of which are doubtful then you get to pay the bill. Suing the Coast Guard is suing the American tax payer. How much did BP pay this group to put our this report, I wonder.

[RightsGuy]

11:49 PM on 07/28/2010

BP only cares about maintaining its image so they can keep making money. They don’t care about the people their actions and policies have killed.

The human cost of the oil spill and BPs corruption is huge, not only with this oil spill disaster, but with many other losses of life on other BP rigs.

Everyone please take a look at the following tribute by Steve Joynt to the 11 men who died on the Deepwater Horizon, “Oil spill Day 100: The 11 men who died on the Deepwater Horizon”

http://blog.al.com/live/2010/07/oil_spill_day_100_the_11_men_w.html

We can never lose sight of the human cost of BP’s malfeasance.

[LogicalMathMan]

11:44 PM on 07/28/2010

Let's all f.art collectively and see if they start blaming us.

[Dr Juan]

10:46 PM on 07/28/2010

Thats right, diffuse all blame so BP never pays for causing gusher.

Look what political contributions can buy!

[Gatormouth]

01:01 PM on 07/29/2010

We should be cautious about conclusions. There is a lot of blame to go around here, and the source organization for the report, The Center for Public Integrity, appears to be a left-of-center non-profit according to WIKI, with creds for apparent impartiality. This report does not exonerate BP, it exposes long standing deficiencies in our emergency response preparation. This would have required decades of negligence. LOTS of blame to go around. Not an apology or cover up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Public_Integrity#Funding_from_Bill_Moyers_and_the_Schumann_Foundation

[Dr Juan]

05:25 PM on 08/01/2010

Bottom line: cheapskates BP had UA mods done to BOP, failed to properly test and maintain it ... and then abused/missmanaged the well which forced POB into play as safety device of last resort. When needed most, it failed to shut, failed to disconnect riser and all this blow-torched the drill rig till it sunk, breaking off the riser causing the recordbreaking uncontrolled oil gusher. Facts... any other story is a story. BP management seemed to be more focused on getting signatures from the Deepwater crew instead of worrying about consequences of the rig going down. IMHO, cancel all BP offshore leases so they stop giving oil a bad name.

Ask a firefighter how difficult it is to put out a fire around hot metal that is being continuously fed by a record gusher of methane and light crude. Coast Guard did all they could except to send in robots or divers to cut the rig free of the riser to avoid its sinking.

[Icky Sticky]

10:46 PM on 07/28/2010

You gotta be chittin' me, right?

[oxjr]

10:23 PM on 07/28/2010

um I am pretty sure it was the explosion that caused the fire that cause the sinking.... but nice try BP you have (fill in the blank)s

[RightsGuy]

11:51 PM on 07/28/2010

Everyone,

Get your free PROSECUTE BP bumper sticker here:

http://stickerobot.com/bp/

You can also download and print your own. Hang them up everywhere!

[sharonh]

09:36 PM on 07/28/2010

and if the Coast Guard had not responded?

[banker67]

09:36 PM on 07/28/2010

When you make a reported $1 billion each month in profit, you can buy all the 'scientific reports' you need to 'prove' BP was nowhere NEAR this disaster, ever!
The Coast Guard did it!
The environmental bureaucrats who failed to make BP obey the law are at fault!
Obama did it!
How many newly minted Ph.D.s can you buy for 1% of one month's BP profits?
You do the math.

[xlntcat]

03:21 AM on 07/29/2010

Saying the Coast Guard is responsible is saying that YOU are responsible for the damages versus BP et al.

[outnow]

08:57 PM on 07/28/2010

BP acted on a set stage. Since danger invites rescue, the exact manner in which the harm occurs does not break the chain of legal causation. So long as the harm to be foreseen from negligence was there, the exact manner in which it came about does not matter, and the damages were still proximately caused by BP and its contractors.

Having said that, it is up to a trier of fact to make all the factual determinations based on expert witnesses' opinion(s). From what I can determine, the riser was bent during the fire supression, and if the fire suppression was done erooneously, then an issue is presented. I see the faulty suppression efforts as an intervening act of negligence which accurred later in time. Danger invites rescue so the chain of legal causation is not broken. There may be joint tortfeasors but the original actor(s) remain jointly and severally liable.

There will be many cross-complaints for indemnity - some based on concurrent tort liability and implied equitable indemnity and others on express written indemnity agreements.

The Firefighters may have an immunity but BP is still on the hook. Let the lawyers fight it out.

[outnow]

09:00 PM on 07/28/2010

That is to say that the negligence of the fire suppression is not supervening in a legal sense, thereby cutting off BP's liability - the negligence is intervening only.

[Skepticat]

08:44 PM on 07/28/2010

If you have a high pressure venting burning mixture of flammable and combustible liquids and are unable to stop the flow because someone wanted to save money by not installing a blow-out preventer there is no quick easy extinguishment if you can't stop the flow. Structural steel tends to fail fairly quickly at exposures to temperatures above 1100 degrees F - and things go rapidly downhill from there. The firefighters didn't cause the problem.

[xlntcat]

03:22 AM on 07/29/2010

Agree. Wonder how much BP paid this organization for this report?

[JerryJH]

07:53 PM on 07/28/2010

And the animals are to blame for not swimming around the oil globules - they should know better.

[xlntcat]

03:23 AM on 07/29/2010

The Coast Guard didn't train them right.

[getoffmedz]

06:31 PM on 07/28/2010

Right. The Coast Guard caused the crude oil volcano.

What poorly run operation caused the explosion?

Well-heeled corporatist shills protecting their investments. A most blatant attempt.

Anyone pushing this swill is a fellow-traveler and a dupe. This is the third or fourth lame attempt to blame someone else for BP's malfeasance.

[had-enough]

06:27 PM on 07/28/2010

BP propaganda for their upcoming lawsuits against the USA!

[jan4insight]

08:03 PM on 07/28/2010

x2, thoughts exactly!

[HLL]

08:27 PM on 07/28/2010

x3 had
Grrrrrrrr