Save The Stockholders

On May 11th, I posted a few thoughts about the BP Oil Rig Disaster in a post called Plan 9 From Outer Space. In it, I spoke of how the Soviets had used nuclear bombs on a number of occasions to deal with petro chemical disasters. 

In the last few days it has become apparent that the oil plume has hit the Loop Current and is being carried into the Atlantic and will start hitting the Florida Keys very soon. Then, it starts to travel up the East Coast and possibly across the Atlantic.

The European Space Agency reported today that they have satellite images of the oil being dragged into the powerful Gulf Stream.

This in the short term could be disasterous for the coral reefs around the southern tip of Florida.

Since the Oil Rig sunk on April 22, 28 days ago, we have been lied to repeatedly by BP with their claims of being prepared, the seriousness of the spill, the amount being released and the number of actual plumes.

They have ineffectively tried one bright idea after another to deal with the leakage. The latest labored attempt is a pipe line sucking up a microscopic amount which took three attempts get  working.

The stories of predisaster warnings, such as the explosion which shut the well down a week before the big one, the disregard of protocol by Halliburton in the cement capping procedure and the actual over ruling of Deepwaters concerns by BP which immediately preceded the explosion are all irrelevant now. The blame game is for later.

Let's face it. This is the big one. This is a man made disaster that has the impact of a nuclear accident in immediate and long term effects.

The reason it has not been treated as such in the media is basically the release of information by BP and the treatment of the information by the media because this is corporate, economic catastrophe.

The main reason that it isn't being dealt with in an authoritive and immediate manner is because BP wants to protect its hundreds of millions of dollars of investment. If the well was shut down and destroyed, BP would not only lose its immediate investment, but would probably be banned from drilling in the region.

The imperative, responsible course of action, the only course of action at this point in time is to shut and seal the well as quickly as possible. This could be accomplished with high explosives and though I jokingly referred to the Russians use of Nukes, that isn't neccessary. The President must take command of this situation and use a disaster control protocol to destroy the well immediately.

I don't know about the rest of you but this story seems like it should be the final straw:

Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet
thick. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given.
“There’s a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water,” said Samantha Joye, a researcher at the University of Georgia who is involved in one of the first scientific missions to gather details about what is happening in the gulf. “There’s a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column.”
The plumes are depleting the oxygen dissolved in the gulf, worrying scientists, who fear that the oxygen level could eventually fall so low as to kill off much of the sea life near the plumes.

 BP has had its chance to save its well. The time has run out. It's time for the president to seize control of the situation and blow this well up.