Links for 12/27/10

But this was a disaster with two distinct parts — first a blowout, then the destruction of the Horizon. The second part, which killed 11 people and injured dozens, has escaped intense scrutiny, as if it were an inevitable casualty of the blowout.

It was not.

read more here about Deep Water Horizon’s final hours

Florida Spill Claimants

New Data on BP Oil Spill Damage

Read what scientists say about the latest results concerning the oil spill in the gulf of Mexico earlier this year.

Despite claims by BP and the EPA that Corexit, the chemical dispersant BP used to sink the oil was ‘as harmless as dish soap.’, on June 23, 2010, the US Coast Guard confirmed the death of two members of the cleanup crew who had been overcome by exposure to BP’s chemical dispersant.

BP Oil on Gulf Floor

The report leaves unanswered many questions about the spill’s environmental impact that scientists are likely to be researching—and BP and the government are likely to be fighting over—for years.

For instance, officials sprayed some 1.8 million gallons of chemical dispersants on the oil to break it up and prevent it from washing ashore. In some sediment, tests found a chemical contained in dispersant, but its environmental impact is unknown, the report said.

read more about BPs oil here

individuals impacted by the events are urged to get lawyers here

Aging Equipment Cause of Oil Accidents

On June 10, 1947, Stanolind Oil & Gas Co. won an auction for the right to drill for oil on a plot seven miles off the Louisiana coast. The company built a spindly steel platform and drilled a well in shallow waters. It struck oil, and in 1950, Stanolind sold its first Louisiana sweet crude for 2.02€ a barrel.
More than 60 years later, the West Cameron 45-A platform is, according to government records, the oldest functioning platform in federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico. One of more than 100 structures built in the 1940s and 1950s still in operation, the platform has survived seven Category 2 hurricanes and a major fire.

read more about the aging rigs at The Wallstreet Journal