NEW ORLEANS -- Mid-Saturday morning, storm clouds are motorcycling across the sky. We're seeing, and feeling, the winds we've been hearing about for two days, the winds whipping the BP oil slick closer and closer to the shore of the coastal wetlands. And, after two or three months in which it seemed this city was virtually levitating (the Saints' victory in the Super Bowl, the forthcoming end of the Ray Nagin era), that sinking feeling is back, just at the time the city is reaching the climax of JazzFest. So, the talk among the locals is the dread that the regional economy and ecology is about to take another disastrous hit at the hands of outsiders, while the visitors are enjoying the music, the food, and the crafts that flow from the culture formed by that ecology. And there are reports of locals lining up for what many expect may be their last taste of raw Louisiana oysters for a long, long time. Frozen Chinese seafood, anyone?
And, as more details of the BP spill incident emerge, one spies a familiar pattern: BP wasted days minimizing the amount of oil flowing from the well, freezing the feds until NOAA came out with the bad news. And BP executives reportedly minimized the danger of a spill.
Sound familiar? It should. Information I've collected for my forthcoming documentary film on the 2005 flooding of New Orleans, The Big Uneasy, show that the US Army Corps of Engineers, as far back as 1974, minimized chances that any storm larger than the "Standard Project Hurricane," which served as their design spec, could endanger the area, and as recently as 2005 it minimized chances that its still-uncompleted Hurricane Protection System could breach. Thomas Ricks' excellent book on the Iraq war, Fiasco, is rife with evidence that Pentagon planners routinely embraced best-case scenarios, refusing to engage in worst-case planning.
In other words, despite all the divisions we're supposed to believe are important -- left/right, public/private -- major projects in modern America seem to be rife with wishful thinking and short-term economics. Because it's cheaper to believe in best cases. Until the worst case happens.
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Georgianne Nienaber: Defense Mobilizes Louisiana National Guard to Fight BP Oil Spill
The US Defense Department authorized the deployment of the Louisiana National Guard to help local communities in the cleanup and removal of oil. Whether critical habitats can be protected from contamination is the question of the hour.
John McQuaid: The Oil Spill: Another Louisiana Tragedy
Since Europeans first settled there 300 years ago, Louisiana has borne the brunt of catastrophic misjudgments over exploitation of the land and natural resources. That trend, it seems, continues.
Charlie Cray: Time to Drill Down Into Halliburton's Role in Big Oil Spill
If Halliburton doesn't start spilling its guts soon, what is already destined to be an ecological disaster will also be a major PR disaster for a company already saddled with the reputation for being a war profiteer.
John Marshall: Oil Slick Poisons God of the Sea
The aquatic immortal said that despite the disruption to the coastline, the ecosystem and the balance of nature, he had no doubt that BP would restore its name.
Louisiana state employees/site managers were told BP would reimburse the State for all losses.
Sites' staffs are being pared down by transfers because of indefinite closures of sites.
Historical sites are sustaining physical damage throughout So. Louisiana. However, mid-level management have been told BP will not be billed to restore the historical sites to their restored condition.
Furthermore there exists no plan, nor expectation of a plan, for BP to reimburse the State for any damage done to historic sites for damage done because of oil in the immediate/long term future.
Skeleton staffs are charged with holding down the fort, they must now take on the responsibilities of their former co-workers, the Louisiana employees that remain have been told that the comp time that they would customarily accrue when working closed sites will not be billed to BP nor extended to employees. In essence, employees would retroactively, immediately & effectively suffer a pay cut.
Deep painful costs have already been paid: 11 lives lost to their families; ecological damage; financial from families; fisheries to small businesses; and others are left to wonder if after BP is finished, will the their jobs at/& historical sites also pay the ultimate price-extinction.
Everyone other than BP is paying deeply for the 21st Century European Black Plague & another man made disaster.
BP has over reached this time, but take little comfort. Our political response will probably be to tax the energy companies a bit more to support a bigger rainy day fund. A form of insurance that will ultimately be passed on to the consumer. A bulked up fund will be better, but still woefully inadequate to even partially compensate future victims of foreseeable oil spills.
A better form of insurance would tax multinational oil to jump start inevitable conversion to a renewable energy . Force big oil to subsidize its planned obsolescence. Let the multinationals dictate our economic future and the last oil will buy somebody a bigger yacht. Set national policy goals to tilt the playing field in a different direction can buy us National Energy Independence. Which is more patriotic?
The powers that be only see a strategic port surrounded by oil and gas reserves. The beautiful city with it's centuries old culture and unique population, appears to be expendable to these exploiters.
Same as it ever was, and same as it ever continues to be in so many other parts of the world today. Don't let the exploiters get away with it! Don't make excuses for them, and, above all, don't blame the people who are victims of these man-made catastrophes.
Hurricane Katrina didn't flood New Orleans. Poorly constructed flood walls that were known to be deficient, caused that flooding.
Nature didn't cause this oil spill, nor did some nefarious secret saboteur.
Safety took a backseat to profits, and now it won't be just LA that suffers this time. Still unknown swaths of the US coastline will pay the price.
Ask not for whom the ecological disaster warning siren wails, it wails for thee.
This disaster is not the first sign of our failing infrastructures that were never repaired or maintained due to the greed of man.
Also love the consistently well-written articles by Shearer -- a multi-talented guy who would make a great Congressman or Senator (though he's probably too smart to run).
Keep up the good work, HS. Looking forward to the Katrina documentary.
Are you aware that BP's worst case scenario planning design, which was submitted to EPA, addressed the possibility of an open well running 90 days at roughly five times the current rate (which would accrue roughly nine times the spillage of the Exxon Valdez.)? I would point out that much of what we are allowed to see right now is more a form of "On The Air" hardball negotiations between BP, EPA, Homeland Security, The White House, and State Governments. (Ask yourself, for instance, how we should understand Salazar's fantastic declaration that BP will be made to pay for the cleanup of "every last drop of oil.")
As to your writing and work, I would ask, will your documentary film about the flooding of New Orleans also cover the US Corp of Engineers repeated recommendations to build gates to protect the canals from focal pressures? --the same Corp recommended gate constructions that were endlessly derailed by frivolous suits from local landowners about potential environmental impact.. the same Corp recommended gate constructions that were allowed to be built only after the levees were breached after weakening by focal pressures during Katrina? Or is your film concerned only with "other kinds" of issues about the Corp of Engineers?
It's yet another instance of those who personally stand to gain from given projects making environmentalists out to be the bad guys. Or, basically, anyone who asks legitimate questions and attempts to hold citizens (including "corporate citizens"), entities, and proposed projects up to existing regulatory and legal standards. Ask a question, you're automatically a bad guy and viewed as an obstacle to be dealt with. You're not a responsible citizen doing his or her civic duty, you're part and parcel of the "red tape", of onerous Big Government. And furthermore, you might even get slapped with a SLAP suit for attempting to use the public process to thwart profit-making enterprise.
It's a favorite tactic, you know.
Just try it sometime.
Don't worry about "focal pressure". It's just the writer's affectation.
They need to contact the folks up in Prince William Sound, Alaska, and get a dose of reality. Many of those folks, I think it was just last year that they saw their first dollar (well, make the 10 cents on the dollar). Many had died, gone bust, or just disappeared in the 20 ensuing years. Of course Exxon was all lawyered up and they got their handsome paychecks all along while they delayed and delayed and screwed the Alaskans.
I wonder if any of the findings that the state and feds researched on that spill will translate to the Gulf of Mexico?. Probably not, but hey, that money to fund that research did come quickly, so maybe the Gulf States will at least reap some economic benefits as the research dollars trickle down the ladder.
As if a mere $75 million---not billion--million dollars (the cap for such liability) will be a drop in the bucket---or the barrel---- before this is finished.
You know who will end up paying the lion's share for this damage?
The workers whose family members were killed, the citizens whose livelihoods were destroyed, and those whose quality of life was severely and possibly permanently diminished. And local, state, and federal taxpayers.
In other words...you and me.
Chris Rock said it best on Bill Maher's show a couple of weeks ago. "If the people out there knew what's really going on, they'd burn this mother f*#ker to the ground."
Oh, and thanks for the clarification of LN&SC. Liberals need to start to use that same strategy (name mimicry) to dupe conservatives into supporting and working on liberal causes.
S.D.G.
They get higher prices for their oil, all the tourist business translocated to the Pacific side, and they get to check our tourist passports and (don't forget) birth certificates. Oh, and the real estate junkies will all look to switch to Mexico. Its a WIN-WIN!
Sorry :) and >) that being tounge in cheek.
This is the result of short term thinking. Short term thinking is the hallmark of the business community. There is no project or business process that cannot be cut if it will cause the bottom line to improve. There is no government responsibility that cannot be shirked if it allows for another tax cut. Our troops saw it in Iraq, when some were sent without body armor. We saw it in New Orleans in Katrina. We saw it in the banking industry as the Republicans cut regulation and loaded up the regulatory bodies with people who didn't believe in regulation.