BP fails fucking Booming School 101

Booming is a method by which oil spills are contained through the use of booms.

Who among us did not look at the aerial footage of quite small waves lapping quietly over the single broken up lines of orange booms in the Gulf of Mexico and think That's your disaster clean-up plan?

Someone who apparently does know how it should be done explains what she says every oil company and the US Coast Guard already know. There's noises about taking BP off the clean-up now. And that took a month?

h/t Mind of Dan

Update : EPA Considering Banning BP from Gov't Contracts

Over the past 10 years, BP has paid tens of millions of dollars in fines and been implicated in four separate instances of criminal misconduct that could have prompted this far more serious action. Until now, the company's executives and their lawyers have fended off such a penalty by promising that BP would change its ways.

BP is the largest oil and gas producer in the Gulf of Mexico and operates some 22,000 oil and gas wells across United States, many of them on federal lands or waters.

In the past decade environmental accidents at BP facilities have killed at least 26 workers, led to the largest oil spill on Alaska's North Slope and now sullied some of the country's best coastal habitat, along with fishing and tourism economies along the Gulf. "

On May 21 BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles told CBS News that "there have been larger spills in the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf of Mexico has survived".

Anne Drinkwater, President of BP Canada, appeared before the Standing Committee on Natural Resources on May 13th to explain why BP Canada had raised the possibility of getting exemption from some disaster prevention measures should they be allowed to proceed with their three bids to drill in the Canadian Arctic. Drinkwater was not able to answer any technical questions but did admit that the disputed safety measures would be expensive.

Her prepared statement on the Gulf of Mexico spill included the info that :

"Over 1.5 million feet of boom has been installed to contain the spill and protect sensitive coastal areas, with more than a million more feet available."

As the oil laps up onto the Louisiana marshlands tonight, maybe someone should send her the Booming School 101 vid.

Update 2 from Ian in Comments : New York Times

"Federal regulators responsible for oversight of drilling in the Gulf of Mexico allowed industry officials several years ago to fill in their own inspection reports in pencil — and then turned them over to the regulators, who traced over them in pen before submitting the reports to the agency, according to an inspector general’s report to be released this week.

In mid-2008, a minerals agency employee conducted four inspections on drilling platforms when he was also negotiating a job with the drilling company"

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Haiti : It's a security circus now

As more and more foreign troops pour into Haiti -

Star : Canada rides to the rescue in Haiti
2,000 more soldiers flooding into Haiti with navy ships to help with security, relief

- Doctors Without Borders report five of their planes, including one containing a field hospital, have been refused permission to land by the US controlled airport.

Dr. Evan Lyon at the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince via Democracy Now:

"One thing that I think is really important for people to understand is that misinformation and rumors and, I think at the bottom of the issue, racism has slowed the recovery efforts of this hospital. Security issues over the last forty-eight hours have been our—quote “security issues” over the last forty-eight hours have been our leading concern. And there are no security issues.

I’ve been with my Haitian colleagues. I’m staying at a friend’s house in Port-au-Prince. We’re working for the Ministry of Public Health for the direction of this hospital as volunteers. But I’m living and moving with friends. We’ve been circulating throughout the city until 2:00 and 3:00 in the morning every night, evacuating patients, moving materials. There’s no UN guards. There’s no US military presence. There’s no Haitian police presence. And there’s also no violence. There is no insecurity."

CBC, today :

"About 7,000 UN military peacekeepers and 2,100 international police are in Haiti. Ban said Monday he asked the UN Security Council to add 2,000 troops and 1,500 police.
About 180 tonnes of relief supplies arrived Saturday, but people on the street say none of it is reaching them.
Geneva-based Doctors Without Borders said: "There is little sign of significant aid distribution."

Why these poor people are not rioting after a full week of this I have no idea.

Update : From Ian Welsh via Pogge in comments :

"The longer “security” is used as a reason not to distribute food, water and medical supplies the more angry and desperate Haitians will become, and thus the worse the security situation will be. Troops which are not actually providing security for actual distribution of supplies, by taking up airlift capacity which could be used for relief, make the security situation worse rather than better."

And remember Airshow Mackay proudly sending off two Canadian destroyers to Haiti "loaded with supplies and relief" ? Well, they've arrived :

"HMCS Athabaskan brings little in terms of actual food and water, but is more equipped to provide support to existing agencies, to provide leadership in chaotic communities and to better assess their needs and priorities."

Jesus wept. Maybe they can reconnoiter the Haitians up some mud pies.
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Haiti : From manmade disaster to disaster capitalism

The Guardian :

"Any large city in the world would have suffered extensive damage from an earthquake on the scale of the one that ravaged Haiti's capital city on Tuesday afternoon, but it's no accident that so much of Port-au-Prince now looks like a war zone. Much of the devastation wreaked by this latest and most calamitous disaster to befall Haiti is best understood as another thoroughly manmade outcome of a long and ugly historical sequence ..."

... a historical sequence which saw Canada join France and the US in overthrowing the popular and democratically elected Aristide -twice - in favour of a brutal rightwing dictatorship more friendly to offshore sweatshops. The government we apparently preferred was formed by former Tonton Macoutes who subsequently murdered thousands of people. Sometimes we have called this "Responsibility to Protect".

And talk about holding the bully's coat, Canadian troops held the airport while US troops deported Aritide to Africa.

"Relentless neoliberal assault on Haiti's agrarian economy has forced tens of thousands of small farmers into overcrowded urban slums. Although there are no reliable statistics, hundreds of thousands of Port-au-Prince residents now live in desperately sub-standard informal housing, often perched precariously on the side of deforested ravines. The selection of the people living in such places and conditions is itself no more "natural" or accidental than the extent of the injuries they have suffered.

The international community has been effectively ruling Haiti since the 2004 coup. The same countries scrambling to send emergency help to Haiti now, however, have during the last five years consistently voted against any extension of the UN mission's mandate beyond its immediate military purpose. Proposals to divert some of this "investment" towards poverty reduction or agrarian development have been blocked, in keeping with the long-term patterns that continue to shape the distribution of international "aid"."

On the day after the quake, the disaster capitalism vultures were already circling overhead ...
The Heritage Foundation :

"Long-term reforms for Haitian democracy and its economy are also badly overdue. Congress should immediately begin work on a package of assistance, trade, and reconstruction efforts needed to put Haiti on its feet and open the way for deep and lasting democratic reforms.
In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the U.S. response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti earthquake offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti’s long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the public image of the United States in the region."

. See also Rusty Idols and Thwap

Bill Quigley at Democracy Now : US Policy in Haiti Over Decades “Lays the Foundation for Why Impact of Natural Disaster Is So Severe”

Naomi Klein at Democracy Now : Haiti Disaster Capitalism Alert: Stop Them Before They Shock Again

Max Blumenthal : How Washington's Plot Against Haiti Worsened the Earthquake Disaster
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