Friday, June 11, 2010

Walruses

CAN'T WAIT TO READ THE PLAN:  Tim Dickinson wrote a devastating account of Team Obama's effort in the Gulf, which included this detail on a past BP plan (p. 2):

Nowhere was the absurdity of the policy more evident than in the
application that BP submitted for its Deepwater Horizon well only two
months after Obama took office. BP claims that a spill is "unlikely" and
states that it anticipates "no adverse impacts" to endangered wildlife
or fisheries. Should a spill occur, it says, "no significant adverse
impacts are expected" for the region's beaches, wetlands and coastal
nesting birds. The company, noting that such elements are "not required"
as part of the application, contains no scenario for a potential
blowout, and no site-specific plan to respond to a spill. Instead, it
cites an Oil Spill Response Plan that it had prepared for the entire
Gulf region. Among the sensitive species BP anticipates protecting in
the semitropical Gulf? "Walruses"