By now, you might have heard something about a little oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. No, not the on-going one that British Petroleum (BP) is responsible for. We’re taking about one that occurred from June 6, 1979-March 23rd, 1980. It was in all the papers. This spill turned loose 3.5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico in just 200 feet of water.
How did those responsible for this mess respond to that crisis? Well, they tried the “top kill” method, pumping the well full of “mud” to stop the flow of oil, but this proved to be a no go. Then they tried the “junk shot”, filling the well casing full of assorted scraps to form a clog, and again came up short. Next, they went to what they called “the sombrero”, a cute little device meant to seal off the gusher, and allow the oil to be collected in tankers, and again failed miserably. In the end, the only thing that stopped this manmade catastrophe was a relief well that took nine months to complete. If you want to know what happened in the meantime, turn on the news.
What a wonderful learning experience this should have been. But it all seems to have been for naught. Not only didn’t we learn the potential consequences of an off-shore drilling accident, we didn’t even learn that no cute, sleight of hand tricks will get us out of a gigantic mess of our own making.
That doesn’t apply to everyone, just to those responsible for managing oil exploration in this country. In Canada, if you are drilling for oil offshore, you are required to drill a relief well simultaneously. That way, when it turns out you don’t you don't know what you're doing, it won’t be noticed for quite so long.
Not that the BP executives are alone in looking stupid. Some politicos are trying to upstage them. Bobby Jindal, Louisiana’s Governor, once a very vocal proponent of offshore drilling, is now alternately ranting and raving about, and then standing by, Big Oil. For instance, he will preach BP CEO Tony Hayward’s funeral one day, and next day criticize President Obama’s moratorium on off-shore drilling.
Sarah Palin, the ½ term governor of Alaska, has gone for a tried and true reaction to BP’s oil spill; blame the environmentalists. Yes, she said, it is the ban on drilling for oil in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) that drove BP into such deep waters. In other words, let us drill in ANWR, and we won’t get in over our heads elsewhere.
Meanwhile, Alaska's Senator Murkowski, is keeping a bill that would force BP to pay for the cleanup from being voted on. No one knows why. Or do they?
Those who normally think big government is the problem are now calling on it to fix the problem they’d normally leave to the free market to correct. Maybe they’d be alright with the Russian solution, a small nuke to seal the leak.
These people are even calling on President Obama to do something. Well, it ain’t like he’s got anything else to do. These people would know. So sure, throw another crisis on the plate. There’s nothing that requires his attention elsewhere, is there?
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