There's two phrases I keep hearing in the news of late that I hate. "That this will never happen again" is one of them and "worst case scenario" is the other. That this will never happen again is foolish. As we continue to move technology forward with yet bigger and bigger endeavors it will be the very nature of circumstance to have bigger and bigger accidents. We have done this by the necessity of an ever growing population.
Let's take worst case scenario. That's right up my alley. All of the emergency response books that I have deal specifically with worst case spills. The process isn't complicated. Non response people are evacuated. The chemical or "product" is identified (that can be done 24 hours a day) calling an ID hotline. Then the response personnel having determined proper protective equipment establish a perimeter with booms, sweeps, absorbent pads or even cat litter is used. Then the product is collected for disposal or recycle. We always assume that things can get worse and often times they do.
That this will never happen again? Of course it will happen again. As long as people fail to follow procedures, as long as profits are ahead of safety and as long as there are failures in communication there will be agains. Never happen again? Of course events will happen again but it's a matter of how well prepared and how much money business is willing to pay up front to deal with the possibilities. How much profit are they willing to part with to prevent future events?
I had considered going down there to help out but after seeing the way this is being managed and the fact that it would be somewhat economically unrealistic I think not. I'm seeing unmanned booms. Booms and sweeps being laid wrong. And workers spending 8 to 12 hours in the sun cleaning up the same spot over and over and getting nowhere. Until the leak is truly slowed and some other techniques incorporated then this is just an exorcise in futility. As long as BP remains in charge of this "clean up" then nothing will be done right. They may have drilled wells all over the world but they seem to have no clue as far as fixing their mistakes and cleaning the mess.
8 comments:
You would be correct Sir. I too thought of going down but I'd probably stroke out. If it could be done wrong BP is your source.
I could write a book on this, there's not even anyone in Government who listens. Years from now we'll be saying, we should have, could have but didn't.
To recap a point I made in a post awhile back, we license doctors, nurses, pharmacists and even beauticians and cosmetologists. Why don't we license corporations and their executives?
How much harm can a greed-driven corporate CEO or executive, or other high-level decision maker do, compared to a pharmacist or cosmetologist?
When you get a corporation with the kind of record BP America has, you've got ample reason to pull its license, effectively putting it out of business in the U.S.
Also, in the process of obtaining a license, corporate officials should be made aware of their responsibilities to their workers, communities, states, regions and the country as a whole, including the environment and economy. They should have to specifically acknowledge they know and accept those responsibilities, and know that if they fail to act responsibly, their ride on the gravy train is over. They can be out on the street without their high-level, high-pay job on a day's notice, and be unable to get another similar job ever again. They simply would no longer qualify for a license!
If we were to do that, after a few corporation were forced to dissolve and sell off their assets; after a few ex-executives were shown on the evening news selling insurance or running a car wash, or doing other less-prestigious and lucrative work, a whole lot of corporate bigwigs would realize they had better be damned careful about what they do and fail to do. And, all that's on top of sending especially reckless and crooked ones to prison.
Sounds tough and it is, for good reason. A look at the picture at the top of your post should be reason enough, all by itself, to get tough.
I have an interesting theory:
Nature needs the gulf coast area in order to do her work well and being as she hasn't been able to discourage the monkeys from overpopulating it with storms all the time decided to toss in a nice oil gusher in the mixture.
It will be interesting to see how it looks in a year or two. Meanwhile, there's plenty of other places the tourists can go, others would love to have the money.
Florida is so over populated that they are buying water from Georgia, interesting.
To damn many stupid monkeys on this rock, it would benefit mother nature if about half of them died off and it's clear that she is trying to get rid of a lot of them.
JUST A DROP IN THE BUCKET
You bet it'll happen again and you bet we won't learn from our mistakes. We never do.
This was absolutely incredible! I seen some photo's on Infidel753 blog of animal's/ bird's covered in this gook .... they were so drenched, they didnt even no longer look like an animal, but a goddamn sculpture of some kind.
Actually I would like to post this on my latest piece on BP ... if you have any problemo, just please feel free to tell me. But this is kind of frank, and seem's ... well .... logical. Thanx
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