John Rudolf, of Huffington Post reveals that Department of Justice is Investigating BP for Faulty Oil Spill Estimates. BP had the computer modeling technology, and the data to produce far better oil flow estimates, than the ones disclosed to the public and the government. The vastly underestimated flow rates BP did release delayed citizens and the government from taking adequate responses early in the crisis.
Photo Credit: National Geographic
The DOJ, and several private suits are trying to prove that BP's lack of forthright disclosure, was intentional to protect its own financial interests at the cost of jeopardizing public safety. John Rudolf provides an excellent, and detailed history of this disaster and brings us up to date, on the latest legal ramifications.
On April 25, 2010, BP assured the Gulf Coast that a disaster wasn't unfolding. ...
BP knew that the well, tapping a reservoir of at least 50 million barrels, could release vast amounts of crude oil, dwarfing tanker-sized spills. But the company's experts quickly calculated that the well was releasing just 1,000 barrels a day, an estimate it provided to the Coast Guard shortly after the leak was found. ...
At a press conference the next day, a New Orleans reporter asked whether the leak could produce a spill on par with the Exxon Valdez disaster. Doug Suttles, an engineer and BP's chief operating officer for exploration and production, told him it could not. ...
...The leak rate at the time was far, far higher than BP portrayed to the Coast Guard -- more than 50,000 barrels per day from the moment the rig went down until the well was capped 87 days later, a government-led panel of physicists and engineers would conclude that August. At that rate, the leak had produced an Exxon Valdez-sized spill at least every five days. ...
What is clear is that BP failed, throughout the event, to produce an accurate estimate of the size of the leak to the federal government or the public. Also readily apparent is the company's strong vested interest in downplaying the size of the spill: federal pollution laws stipulate fines as high as $4,300 for every barrel of oil unlawfully discharged into U.S. waters.
As we watch while Japan's Fukushima reactors still spew unknown amounts of radiation into the environment, we are struck with a sad case of deja-vus, "all over again," reading Rudolf's account of corporate deception.
John Rudolf, and the investigative team at Huffington Post has done extensive investigative journalism and has "found the company may have withheld crucial data on the well’s flow rate from federal responders during the spill."
Documents show that BP had the computer modeling, and data to produce far more accurate estimates of the rate of the flow rate and still have not explained adequately why these calculation were either never done, or disclosed to the government and public.
The investigation, which Attorney General Eric Holder announced in June 2010, is examining whether BP officials or employees committed criminal offenses by withholding data or providing false or misleading information to the government or investors about the size of the leak, according to sources with knowledge of the inquiry. ... The federal criminal probe is "alive and ongoing," ...
John Rudolf, deserves kudos for this excellent, long, and detailed piece of investigative journalism.
We need to hold companies operating dangerous, and potentially environmentally catastrophic operations to higher standards to regain the public trust. And, government regulators need to aspire to much more diligent oversight and accountability.
We also need to remind the voting public what dastardly behavior corporations are capable of, without government oversight and regulation to protect us from their greed, and incompetence. It is astonishing that the Teaparty could be having such success denegrating the value of government just after this BP disaster did so much harm, in the Gulf, and we still are five months of on ongoing nuclear disaster that is still releasing radiation into the environment, with no end in site.
We need more, not less oversight for the public safety.
We need more, and better Democrats to articulate why.
I recommend you read this full article. It raises many issues crucial to working towards improvement of our regulatory oversignt and accountability function by government over industry.