Greg Palast - The BP I've Known Too Well

Slick Operator: The BP I've Known Too Well

Wednesday 05 May 2010

by: Greg Palast, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis

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I've seen this movie before. In 1989, I was a fraud investigator hired to dig into the cause of the Exxon Valdez disaster. Despite Exxon's name on that boat, I found the party most to blame for the destruction was ... British Petroleum (BP).

That's important to know, because the way BP caused devastation in Alaska is exactly the way BP is now sliming the entire Gulf Coast.

Tankers run aground, wells blow out, pipes burst. It shouldn't happen, but it does. And when it does, the name of the game is containment. Both in Alaska, when the Exxon Valdez grounded, and in the Gulf last week, when the Deepwater Horizon platform blew, it was British Petroleum that was charged with carrying out the Oil Spill Response Plans (OSRP), which the company itself drafted and filed with the government.

What's so insane, when I look over that sickening slick moving toward the Delta, is that containing spilled oil is really quite simple and easy. And from my investigation, BP has figured out a very low-cost way to prepare for this task: BP lies. BP prevaricates, BP fabricates and BP obfuscates.

That's because responding to a spill may be easy and simple, but not at all cheap. And BP is cheap. Deadly cheap.

To contain a spill, the main thing you need is a lot of rubber, long skirts of it called a "boom." Quickly surround a spill, leak or burst, then pump it out into skimmers, or disperse it, sink it or burn it. Simple.

But there's one thing about the rubber skirts: you've got to have lots of them at the ready, with crews on standby in helicopters and on containment barges ready to roll. They have to be in place round the clock, all the time, just like a fire department, even when all is operating A-O.K. Because rapid response is the key. In Alaska, that was BP's job, as principal owner of the pipeline consortium Alyeska. It is, as well, BP's job in the Gulf, as principal lessee of the deepwater oil concession.

Before the Exxon Valdez grounding, BP's Alyeska group claimed it had these full-time, oil spill response crews. Alyeska had hired Alaskan natives, trained them to drop from helicopters into the freezing water and set booms in case of emergency. Alyeska also certified in writing that a containment barge with equipment was within five hours sailing of any point in the Prince William Sound. Alyeska also told the state and federal government it had plenty of boom and equipment cached on Bligh Island.

But it was all a lie. On that March night in 1989 when the Exxon Valdez hit Bligh Reef in the Prince William Sound, the BP group had, in fact, not a lick of boom there. And Alyeska had fired the natives who had manned the full-time response teams, replacing them with phantom crews, lists of untrained employees with no idea how to control a spill. And that containment barge at the ready was, in fact, laid up in a drydock in Cordova, locked under ice, 12 hours away.

As a result, the oil from the Exxon Valdez, which could have and should have been contained around the ship, spread out in a sludge tide that wrecked 1,200 miles of shoreline.

And here we go again. Valdez goes Cajun.

BP's CEO Tony Hayward reportedly asked, "What the hell did we do to deserve this?"

It's what you didn't do, Mr. Hayward. Where was BP's containment barge and response crew? Why was the containment boom laid so damn late, too late and too little? Why is it that the US Navy is hauling in 12 miles of rubber boom and fielding seven skimmers, instead of BP?

Last year, CEO Hayward boasted that, despite increased oil production in exotic deep waters, he had cut BP's costs by an extra one billion dollars a year. Now we know how he did it.

As chance would have it, I was meeting last week with Louisiana lawyer Daniel Becnel Jr. when word came in of the platform explosion. Daniel represents oil workers on those platforms; now, he'll represent their bereaved families. The Coast Guard called him. They had found the emergency evacuation capsule floating in the sea and were afraid to open it and disturb the cooked bodies.

I wonder if BP painted the capsule green, like they paint their gas stations.

Becnel, yesterday by phone from his office from the town of Reserve, Louisiana, said the spill response crews were told they weren't needed because the company had already sealed the well. Like everything else from BP mouthpieces, it was a lie.

In the end, this is bigger than BP and its policy of cheaping out and skiving the rules. This is about the anti-regulatory mania, which has infected the American body politic. While the tea baggers are simply its extreme expression, US politicians of all stripes love to attack "the little bureaucrat with the fat rule book." It began with Ronald Reagan and was promoted, most vociferously, by Bill Clinton and the head of Clinton's deregulation committee, one Al Gore.

Americans want government off our backs ... that is, until a folding crib crushes the skull of our baby, Toyota accelerators speed us to our death, banks blow our savings on gambling sprees and crude oil smothers the Mississippi.

Then, suddenly, it's, "Where was hell was the government? Why didn't the government do something to stop it?"

The answer is because government took you at your word they should get out of the way of business, that business could be trusted to police itself. It was only last month that BP, lobbying for new deepwater drilling, testified to Congress that additional equipment and inspection wasn't needed.

You should meet some of these little bureaucrats with the fat rule books. Like Dan Lawn, the inspector from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, who warned and warned and warned, before the Exxon Valdez grounding, that BP and Alyeska were courting disaster in their arrogant disregard of the rule book. In 2006, I printed his latest warnings about BP's culture of negligence. When the choice is between Lawn's rule book and a bag of tea, Lawn's my man.

This just in: Becnel tells me that one of the platform workers has informed him that the BP well was apparently deeper than the 18,000 feet depth reported. BP failed to communicate that additional depth to Halliburton crews, who, therefore, poured in too small a cement cap for the additional pressure caused by the extra depth. So, it blew.

Why didn't Halliburton check? "Gross negligence on everyone's part," said Becnel. Negligence driven by penny-pinching, bottom-line squeezing. BP says its worker is lying. Someone's lying here, man on the platform or the company that has practiced prevarication from Alaska to Louisiana.

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Greg Palast has investigated the illegal disenfranchisement of voters for BBC Television, "Rolling Stone" (with Robert Kennedy Jr.), "Harper's," "The Nation" and Truthout.org. Palast co-authored the investigative comic book, "Steal Back Your Vote" with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., available in full-color print or for download at www.StealBackYourVote.com for a donation to the not-for-profit Palast Investigative Fund.

Comments

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Amazing article. I've been
Wed, 05/05/2010 - 21:09 — Brett Banditelli (not verified)

Amazing article. I've been on the never-listen-to-BP bandwagon since the Texas City explosion.

This further proves that private enterprise doesn't deserve slack. Ever.
Let's not forget BP's record
Wed, 05/05/2010 - 21:20 — Anonymous (not verified)

Let's not forget BP's record in Prudhoe Bay, spilling oil all over the north slope. There have been massive spills on multiple occasions there, including two spills in 2006 alone.
Greg Palast is yet another
Wed, 05/05/2010 - 22:14 — David (not verified)

Greg Palast is yet another reason to contribute money to Truthout, along with Jason Leopold and others. You notice the mainstream media refuses to report the truth about BP and other corporate criminals. They focus on whether the oil will hurt fishermen economically, and they whitewash and greenwash BP, Massey Energy, etc. Also on the sheep list are President Obama, the Dept. of Interior, and the Dept. of Justice. BP and Massey execs should be hauled into court and sent to prison on criminal charges. Millions of dollars in fines mean nothing to companies with massive assets. Palast revealed how Bush stole the election in Florida in 2000. Good to see Truthout giving him a venue.
For another take on the
Wed, 05/05/2010 - 22:49 — Anonymous (not verified)

For another take on the spread of guilt (and a great history lesson), I recommend the most recent post on http://theseventhfold.com
Thanks Greg.
Wed, 05/05/2010 - 23:15 — Anonymous (not verified)

Thanks Greg.
What about the gulf? In our
Wed, 05/05/2010 - 23:18 — Sarah (not verified)

What about the gulf? In our rush to punish the guilty, can we take a time out to save the wetlands? Now is the perfect opportunity to restore the delicate wetlands of the gulf coast.

Hurricane season is one month away. Globs of oil on the streets of New Orleans. Can we focus on cleanup first--- then restoration--- THEN the blame and punish fest?

I live here. I love this place. Please help us clean it up.
It's really pretty simple:
Wed, 05/05/2010 - 23:26 — Luis (not verified)

It's really pretty simple: BOYCOTT BP. Send them to where the dinosaurs went: EXTINCTION. Begin with BP and continue until we get the point across: no more corruption, denial of corporate responsibility, etc. This is a great opportunity to change the state of things. And we all have both the power and responsibility to take action. I wonder how many Truthout folks actually have shifted their retirement funds to less evil SRI funds? How many Truthout folks have stopped getting their gas from SHELL -- another company with less than stellar human rights abuses? 'Cmon folks, get with it...
Let's not forget that they
Wed, 05/05/2010 - 23:41 — Anonymous (not verified)

Let's not forget that they tried to get the Indianapolis government to allow them to dump more than their "legal fairshare" into the Great Lakes.
I believe this is a better
Wed, 05/05/2010 - 23:52 — Anonymous (not verified)

I believe this is a better reading of what happened at the Exxon Mobil spill:

http://www.evostc.state.ak.us/facts/details.cfm

BP had nothing to do with it.
I have been reading Palast's
Wed, 05/05/2010 - 23:53 — David T. Gray (not verified)

I have been reading Palast's stuff for years now. He goes away for a while then poof! he returns with a vengeance with a few en-lightening bolts delivered with laser-like accuracy.

I hadn't seen anything from him lately so I knew he was up to something. Get a hold of his videos at gregpalast.com. You will be entertained/saddened for a reasonable amount of time and you will be contributing to a true investigative journalist who will never be invited to guffaw obligingly over heartless bon mots at the President's Correspondent's Dinner.

Remember Bush's skit of looking everywhere for WOMD? Everybody, including Juano Williams of NPR and...Fox News was tickled pink.
Back in the '60's we called
Wed, 05/05/2010 - 23:57 — Bryce (not verified)

Back in the '60's we called corporate scum like BP, Haliburton, et al, "pigs". In this day and age that would be way too kind. These miserable, wretched excuses for human beings don't deserve to breathe the same air as the rest of us. Boil the son- of-bitches in their own oil. I would gladly throw in the first match.
Finally, a real
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 00:00 — Fredboy (not verified)

Finally, a real investigative reporter surfaces to ask the questions and check out the companies' practices and operational culture. Every network and every government agency should have asked these questions from Day 1.
And lo and behold, the hyper-conservative leading GOP senate contender in Florida and the new governor of Virginia still want drilling ASAP. It's time to clean house while we are doing our all to clean the Gulf. We've got to save the nation, our waterways and ecosystems, and this planet from such vicious, selfish recklessness.
Re: Sylvia Earle on the
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 00:03 — Anonymous (not verified)

Re: Sylvia Earle on the NewsHour tonight:

TO: Sylvia Earle:

The NewsHour, a largely oil industry sponsored PBS show, interviewed you today amid
their "coverage" (sic!) of the Gulf oil disaster. As I understand from other sources BP did not
employ full safety technology considered normal and customary in the North Sea, Brazil,
and elsewhere when constructing its Gulf platform. BP wanted to "save" money.
The NewsHour today made no mention of that fundamental willful act of negligence
on BP's part and you also made no mention of it. I suspect overt, tacit, or at
least subconscious complicity there. Your bio says you are on a lot of corporate boards and
you are involved with National Geographic and so on, so I suppose you are in
what we may call a "bound orbit" with respect to these issues. too bad.
To: Anonymous 23:52. I read
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 01:23 — AngryMan (not verified)

To: Anonymous 23:52. I read that article to which you pointed. I agree that BP was not named in that article. However, essentially nothing related to the responsible party for preparedness was contained therein. Do you suggest that it was Alvin and The Chipmunks? Mr. Palast gave information that your cited article did not address. That in no way discredits anything Mr. Palast has written! That article was incomplete at best and addressed issues unrelated to preparation. That was a rather lame attempt to call Mr. Palast a liar but you failed. What a surprise.
What's insane is your lack
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 02:01 — Anonymous (not verified)

What's insane is your lack of facts.
I trust Palast. I believe
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 02:45 — RenZo (not verified)

I trust Palast. I believe what he says. It is however "weird" to actually see facts in print. There seems to be a total lock down on the facts on MainStreamMedia, which is not surprising.
Wouldn't it havehelped to
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 03:09 — Anonymous (not verified)

Wouldn't it havehelped to have this article a few months ago?

How come everyone knows whom to blame AFTER the catastrophe.

I'm interested in warnings about future events.
Audit the fed, support HR
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 03:43 — Charlie Peters (not verified)

Audit the fed, support HR 1207
If BP's Disaster Plans for
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 03:47 — Anonymous (not verified)

If BP's Disaster Plans for this incident are any indication of the way they are handling the clean up then WE ARE GETTING SCREWED!!!

If the USCG had not of been down there I bet BP would have told us that everything on the well was damaged and gone due to the blowout. I thought I was noticing a trend of lies from BP. Apparently that's how they conduct business. I say shut um down!!!
Bryce offered,
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 04:38 — DLewis (not verified)

Bryce offered, excerpted:

"Back in the '60's we called corporate scum like BP, Haliburton, et al, "pigs". [...] These miserable, wretched excuses for human beings don't deserve to breathe the same air as the rest of us.[...]"

BP is not a person, doesn't breath air, doesn't feel the environment it pollutes... is just a sorry, and all too powerful, beast.

BP deserves capital punishment - erase 'it' from our earth, send its human leaders to jail.

Thank you Greg - well summarized yet again,

DLewis
BP is the majority owner of
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 05:09 — Greg Palast (not verified)

BP is the majority owner of both the oil well in the Gulf that blew as well as the majority owner of the Alaska pipeline and the shipping system.
In the Gulf BP did not hide behind a corporate mask but in Alaska BP uses the name Alyeska which conceals its culpability.
Thanks Greg. So, how exactly
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 05:15 — Steve (not verified)

Thanks Greg.

So, how exactly does one bring down this massive corporation if they can somehow stumble through all these pr disasters?
BP may be as culpable as
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 05:41 — Lucy (not verified)

BP may be as culpable as Greg Palast indicates. But offshore drilling of this kind should not be allowed in the first place. It's a messy business and accidents will happen. What kind of clean energy wake up call is needed to end this kind of disastrous dependency?

It must certainly be gratifying to reveal hidden truths and slam the anti-regulators, but it cannot be the end of the story. It would be excellent if Greg Palast and other investigative journalists published articles about the urgency of shifting to clean energy sourcing before another catastrophe occurs. It's not just a case of gross negligence - not when hell in a handbasket is where we are heading.
The US people are too
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 07:09 — David Brookbank (not verified)

The US people are too ignorant, too heavily propagandized by the media and its own government, and too afraid of the "communists" that they are incapable of doing anything but attacking their own self-interests. Due to the same ignorance, propaganda, and fear, they are incapable of identifying those self-interests. They are lost souls, in the hands of oligarchs and robber barons and generals, and a threat to humanity.
Greg, can you get this
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 08:18 — Paul Davis (not verified)

Greg, can you get this report onto Newsnight?
the conclusion after reading
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 09:31 — Anonymous (not verified)

the conclusion after reading Palast`s column: stop sea oil drilling, until all the drill companies are compulsory contracted to have the safety gear that is lacking. Failing that since the american people want the government off their backs is, stop oil sea drilling .
I don't think BP is the
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 09:50 — Anonymous12 (not verified)

I don't think BP is the spawn of satan, but I am pretty unhappy with this spill.

I think a simple fix is to make clear what the penalty is for spills, make it onerous, and follow through with it.

Look, if the oil companies knew that they're on the hook for 10B/day for any spill over 1000 barrels/day (or whatever), they're going to have the containment systems in place. If they don't, they're out of business.

Is BP assuming the vast majority of this cost can be shifted to the tax payer (like everything else)?
If they want to drill at
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 10:28 — CHarles Jannuzi (not verified)

If they want to drill at 5000 feet, they should have emergency response measures in place to deal with a leak at 5000 feet. The negligence is criminal, and I would bet it isn't just BP that is not prepared.
Palast may be correct
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 11:05 — Robbo in Oz (not verified)

Palast may be correct regarding BP and the Exon Valdez cleanup, but was the Master sober and was the vessel taking a short cut. BP wasn't controlling the ship.
While Mr Palast is on his anti British rant he should look at the behaviour of US companies outside the US of A, starting with Exon and Longford, here in Australia.
I have no love for BP or any other bloody oil company British Dutch OR the USofA
Unfortunately, disasters are
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 12:54 — bob dombrowski (not verified)

Unfortunately, disasters are opportunities. Volunteers and volunteered equipment are charging toward the gulf from all over the country. They do not expect to be paid. That is rediculous. Cleaning up someone's mess is dirty work. It should be compensated. This is a chance to institute a "new deal" kind of approach. Unemployed people should flock to the rescue of the gulf. They should know that they will be well paid for their efforts - not by the government - by BP. The oil company should have no choice. If someone wants to help, that person should be paid - time and travel. Something like a union hiring hall could process the paperwork. In economic times where large corporations have stripped people of their savings and employment, this could be the answer. Anyone needing employment simply responds to the disaster and works as long as it takes and is well compensated by BP. The corporation should have no choice.
i feel this is terrible for
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 13:34 — Anonymous (not verified)

i feel this is terrible for the environment we need to try something new instead of burnin
"This is about the
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 14:09 — Austin Loomis (not verified)

"This is about the anti-regulatory mania, which has infected the American body politic. [...] 'Where was hell was the government? Why didn't the government do something to stop it?' [B]ecause government took you at your word..."

This. Completely this. In long words:

"You have destroyed all that which you held to be evil and achieved all that which you held to be good. Why, then, do you shrink in horror from the sight of the world around you? That world is not the product of your sins; it is the product and the image of your virtues. It is your moral ideal brought into reality in its full and final perfection."

TL;DR: "You fucked up; you trusted us."
Can it be so hard? No
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 14:29 — Anonymous (not verified)

Can it be so hard? No offense to Greg Palast but why is his the only report I've read to actually lay out the facts of what happened re. the explosion and consequent oil spill? When the event occurred I read many reports dutifully passing on to the public the BP line that although this huge catastrophe had occurred, there was no spill evident. It does not take a genius to deduce that this would be pretty unlikely yet there was no real "reporting" being done. I fear Mr. Palast must soon collapse from exhaustion as he seems to be the only one in the news media to be doing any real investigative journalism. Won't someone from the major news sources please take pity on him and pitch in and actually do some investigative journalism once in a while.
To Sarah in the Gulf Coast
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 14:46 — Powerpuff (not verified)

To Sarah in the Gulf Coast area: I truly weep for you. If I had the answer I would surely help.

I am so sickened by this horrible mess that I can barely eat or sleep. The stinking people responsible for this are no doubt sleeping well b/c they are clearly asocial monsters.

I am thinking in the long term. What will happen with the shipping lanes for example? Will ships be thwarted when they attempt to bring in food? The implications of this incident make me feel as though this may be the beginning of the end.

To Mother Earth: Sorry we abused you so. We have scared you and rendered you a mass of oil and toxins. I am sure you will heal after we are gone.

To the creators of the earth: Sorry to see some of you go. We have not been very good stewards of your homes. But, we had a good run. It was great while it lasted.
Note that deregulating oil
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 15:00 — ClintJCL (not verified)

Note that deregulating oil was done by both Reagan and Clinton and Gore -- neither of the 2 parties offers hope; someone like Ralph Nader who has been an advocate for consumers and the public would NOT have deregulated like the Republicans and Democrats both did.
All's well that oil's well.
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 15:53 — Anonymous (not verified)

All's well that oil's well.
Hey man BP does not own or
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 16:00 — Anonymous (not verified)

Hey man BP does not own or maintain that rig... Haliburton and others do.. I am not trying to shift blame just saying...
Boycotting BP and Shell is a
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 16:10 — Anonymous (not verified)

Boycotting BP and Shell is a start. But each of us must find ways to use a lot less petroleum.
If the nation doesn't care
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 16:54 — WanaCare (not verified)

If the nation doesn't care about every person & their rights, only big corporations will be left with power. There is proof from Col Wilkerson with Colon Powell that the President's knew victims (12yrs old to 90) in Guantanamo were innocent and being tortured to say they did things that they didn't. - Stand & Care, The invasion of Iraq with the destruction of over a million homes & lives was based on a lie for profits. The banks and the Presidents are saying lets change & put good people in leadership positions, but they mean laying off 1,000's of teacher's, police, and combining jobs of police with ICE, FBI, and secret services reporting to the President & his supporters -Big Corps AFter there are few jobs left that provide living wages then they have to become part of a military elite country.
where do we apply to work on
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 17:09 — anyfreeman (not verified)

where do we apply to work on the gulf rescue effort?
Wow, that is pretty sad
Thu, 05/06/2010 - 18:07 — Jo Diggs (not verified)

Wow, that is pretty sad indeed. Who woulda thunk it.

Lou
www.anonymous-web-surfing.cz.tc
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