Why BP Didn’t Care – Oil Spill Update May 4

BP would have gone the extra mile if its management cared about or respected American people

It’s very simple. If you care about the people, or respect them as human beings, especially those who enrich you, then you do everything humanly possible to protect them from any harm.

Ultimately, there’s little difference between the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico (and elsewhere) and the Union Carbide catastrophe in Bhopal, India in 1984.

In both cases, the two giant corporations had zero regard for the welfare of local populations, never mind the due diligence, care, respect, even basic human rights—they’re just fancy words.

Environment ranks even lower than do people on the corporate scale.

Take a look at this picture:

Would you do this to the environment, if you cared? Does the underwater jungle of pipelines make you feel any safer or more energy secure? Image source: MMS. Click image to enlarge.

How big is the oil spill

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill- Approximate Oil Locations from April 309 – May 4, 2010 including forecast for May 5 based on trajectories and overflight data. Click image to enlarge.

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill- Approximate Oil Locations from April 29 – May 3, 2010 including forecast for May4 based on trajectories and overflight data. Click image to enlarge.

How BP is already denying Alabamans adequate compensation

In case you haven’t already heard, BP lawyers and paralegals are knocking on the doors in Alabama trying to hoodwink people to accept a one-time compensation of about $5,000, which they could get if they waved their rights to a class action lawsuit.

“BP oil spill 2010 news is revealing that BP is trying to offer settlements to some residents in Alabama. The BP oil spill is not their accident, according to BP CEO Tony Hayward, and now it appears that they are trying to get Alabama residents to agree to settlements that might be far less than they would get in a law suit. Some of the settlement agreements that BP is shopping around to coastline residents in Alabama stipulate that they will get a one-time payment of up to $5,000 in exchange for the residents giving up the right to sue the company. This could also mean that some of the offers are well below that $5,000 threshold, and it has already angered the Alabama attorney general.”  More …

Summary of Related News and Events

Make me a giant funnel

BP employees and contractors in Louisiana are welding together large sheets of metal to build a giant 88-ton funnel which they intend to place above the underwater leaks and use a pipe to channel the gushing oil from the damaged well to collection barges.

“It will not happen here” —Arnold Schwarzenegger

Schwarzenegger may not be as suave  as the President, but he sure as oil spill is a lot smarter, and knows how catastrophe is spelled when he sees one made earlier. [He knows that California stands to lose more money from an offshore oil disaster,  than it would make from the royalties, if the new leases went ahead.]

“It will not happen here in California.” Schwarzenegger said at a press conference. “If I have a choice between the $100 million [for state parks] and what I see in the Gulf of Mexico, I’d rather just figure out how to make up for that $100 million.”

“All of you have seen, when you turn on your televisions, the devastation in the Gulf,” he said. “I’m sure that they were also assured that it is safe to drill.”

Meanwhile, Gov. Schwarzenegger was quoted as saying on Monday, he would mount a vigorous defense of his landmark environmental legislation, vowing to “push back” against “greedy oil companies who want to keep polluting in our state.” [Isn’t this stuff just amazing?]

US [Oil-Covered] Fish and Wildlife

• The oil is likely to move slightly southeast away from the Mississippi River Delta and Breton National Wildlife Refuge over the next two days. Winds are forecasted to shift to the southeast on Wednesday.
• The Mississippi and Alabama coastlines could be impacted by Thursday.
• Weather conditions have improved since the weekend and on-water recovery operations are expected to resume today.

Related Links:

• NO New Offshore Drilling: Schwarzenegger Sees the Light
• Gulf of Mexico Oil Leak – Detailed Satellite Image
• Oil Spill Attack on America – UPDATE May 3
• Could Gulf Cataclysmic Disaster Get Even Worse?
• Breaking News: Oil Leak 25,000 Bpd

• Fire-Earth Forecasts 10 Major Oil Spills to End 2011
• ‘I Hate BP, Bog Oil, Obama, US Lawmakers, Oil Lobby!’
• Obama’s energy security falls around his ankles
• Exxon Mobile Court Orders Only Fraction of Damages
• Oil Disasters

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