BP's Oil Breaches Borders - 5/23/10

Isn't it time to get British Petroleum out of the Deep Water Horizon disaster response? Their ocean of oil is coming ashore into our valuable and tender coastal wetlands, and they continue to say, "Hey, we've got this," but they don't. It's become clear that there's at least some culpability on their part, and that there will be a criminal investigation, yet they remain in charge of operations in the Gulf. It's been widely reported that BP insisted on rushing the process, putting a haste for profits ahead of safety (fostering an unsafe profit-driven culture?), likely costing eleven workers their lives. Since the explosion, they've lied and tried to cover up their mess. They claimed there was no leak, then they repeatedly and grossly underestimated the volume of the spill and withheld important information from the public. They are the criminals and the Gulf of Mexico is their crime scene, their arrogant disregard for life, livelihood, property and planet as damaging as a terrorist attack. People died. Many will lose their businesses. Their homes, their whole ways of life may be lost. Towns could shrivel and die. We can't begin to measure the ecological damage compounding every moment until the spew of oil is stopped. BP has failed.

I don't care who we hire, as long as their primary objective is to stop the hemorrhage of oil. We can start with their competitors, but BP has forfeited its rights to execute any operations in the Gulf of Mexico. Karen Gadbois said it on Facebook: "Our border has been breached by BP," and, "If this were oil being thrown at the U.S. by some other nation we would have guns drawn." Let's start by insisting BP stand down. 

Links and references: If you're looking for regionally informed, insightful reporting on this issue, from outside of corporate-funded media, I recommend American Zombie, The Lens NOLA, Humid Beings, Library Chronicles and NOLA-Dishu, who includes some great oil industry insider links (The Oil Drum and RigZone). Finally, bright minds sometimes satirize with art. Don't miss Jeffrey's Oil Spill Cake photo or Michael Homan's very short film, Geauxjira, the story of "a giant crawfish spawned by leaking crude oil," featuring uncredited Blogerati. (Don't miss this.) WKRG's live SpillCam at right.