Offshore Drilling Bill Needs Environmental Safeguards -Part 2

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FIRST APPEARED IN TECHNORATI
Published: August 03, 2010 at 3:40 pm

Offshore Drilling Bill Needs Environmental Safeguards -Part 2
Author: Sandip Sen (ecothrust)
INDEPENDENT OCEAN FLOOR OBSERVATORIES FOR MONITORING

One of the biggest failures in the Gulf oil crisis was the inability of the regulators to stop the consistent flow of manipulated information fed by BP about the oil spill. This was primarily because the Obama administration had no legal right to give the access, in the Macondo Prospect well's leased property, to independent media and scientific groups to monitor the situation. This anomaly needs to be reversed by legislative changes, and Fiberglas observatory stations at the ocean floor for independent monitoring at site must be introduced as a mandatory environmental safety clause in all offshore platform leases.



Be it digitally modified video films, or reduced estimate of oil spill, the ineffective containment or the risky planning of mitigation, BP was always the master of the show at Macondo and its efforts were always lacking transparency, authenticity and honesty. People who were witness to the 1969 Santa Barbara spill would have noted the similarity in the statements between the United Oil Vice President John Frazer and BP CEO Tony Hayward. Both issued misleading data of lower spill volumes, of things under control and of dispersant having minimum effect on the environment.


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