It looks like our crystal meth snorting, porn viewing distracted and overworked Minerals Management Service employees let this slippery devil slip past them.
According to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER):
The British Petroleum Gulf Response Plan looked out everyone's best interests, including walruses, sea lions, sea otters, and seals.
Don't walruses live near the Arctic Circle? I seem to remember that someone else wrote "I am the Walrus" when he was while workin' hard, too.
PEER has their own thoughts on BP's plan:
"This response plan is not worth the paper it is written on," said PEER Board Member Rick Steiner, a noted marine professor and conservationist who tracked the Exxon Valdez spill, noting that the plan is almost 600 pages largely consisting of lists, phone numbers and blank forms. "Incredibly, this voluminous document never once discusses how to stop a deep water blowout even though BP has significant deep water operations in the Gulf."
The plan ~
*Lists "Sea Lions, Seals, Sea Otters [and] Walruses" as "Sensitive Biological Resources" in the Gulf, suggesting that portions were cribbed from previous Arctic exploratory planning
*Gives a web site for a Japanese home shopping site as the link to one of its "primary equipment providers for BP in the Gulf of Mexico Region [for]rapid deployment of spill response resources on a 24 hour, 7 days a week basis
*Directs its media spokespeople to never make "promises that property, ecology, or anything else will be restored to normal," implying that BP will only commit candor by omission.
Mother Jones points out another BP flopping walrus:
On a more serious note, PEER notes that the plan's "Worst Case Discharge" portion "features wildly optimistic projections" about the maximum size of an oil spill. It also assures that within hours of an incident, BP has the "personnel, equipment, and materials in sufficient quantities and recovery capacity to respond effectively to oil spills from the facilities and leases covered by this plan, including the worst case discharge scenarios." Clearly, that is not the case.
A hyperlink provided for a response contractor points to a Japanese shopping Web site is buried deep, deep down, should you have the yen to go shopping or need help 24/7.