A special note to regular bartcop readers: My thanks go out to Mike Malloy for having Mike Papatonio on his show on Friday. I would not have heard about “the story behind the story” had it not been for that. If you do not get Malloy’s show (9-12pm EST) in your area, get a podcast subscription…it’s as good as bartcop radio!
Excerpt:
Yes, that’s correct…a device that costs one half million dollars may have prevented what is on track to become the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
The device is called an acoustic trigger (aka. acoustic switch, actuator). It is a remote-controlled device deployed off oil rigs that sends acoustic impulses through the water, triggering an underwater valve or explosives to shut down the well even if the rig is catastrophically damaged or abandoned.
All offshore rigs have one main switch to shut off the flow of oil by closing a valve located on the ocean floor. There is also supposed to be a backup called a “dead man,” that will shut down the well in the event of a catastrophe on the rig.
Apparently neither of these devices worked on the Deepwater Horizon rig operated by British Petroleum (BP). The crew members who would have been closest to the shutoff switch are among those missing and presumed dead. If the rig was equipped with an acoustic trigger, it would have been a last resort option and could have been activated from a remote location.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Norway and Brazil require these devices in all offshore drilling operations. While they are not required with rigs offshore the U.K., BP elects to deploy them there. BP chose not to equip oil rigs off the coast of the U.S. with acoustic triggers because U.S. regulations enacted in 2003 do not require companies to do so.
A Pensacola attorney, Mike Papantonio, whose firm filed a class-action lawsuit three days ago against BP on behalf of Gulf fishermen had this to say on MSNBC’s The Ed show:
BP didn’t want to spend the money for a system – a fail safe system, used all over the world…[that could have prevented this]. We’re talking about a company that makes forty billion a year that wouldn’t invest five hundred thousand dollars…It is the most unreported part of this story
Now that you’ve lost a $560,000 oil rig, are spending $6 million a day in cleanup efforts, have lost billions in the drop of your stock on the NYSE, have infuriated the citizens of four gulf coast states…how’s that business model working out for you, BP?
Read more here (including video of interview with Papantonio): http://www.examiner.com/x-38220-Orlando-Independent-Examiner~y2010m5d2-500K-device-may-have-prevented-oil-spill