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Where’s the Shut-off on Oil Spill Gibberish?

deepwater_horizon_oil_spill

“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”
-Albert Einstein

It’s time I addressed the all-out destruction of the Gulf of Mexico by reckless drilling practices and a lack of meaningful oversight by federal regulators.

I’ve read some gibberish recently from ideologically stunted people who feel they must defend the indefensible and attack those who would call for reason, logic, common sense and justice.  Don’t forget the justice.

But first let’s take note of something I saw in Home Depot the other day, a remarkable invention in Aisle 8.  There were entire baskets of these things in various sizes, and they were relatively cheap, given what they can do.  You see, you install them between two sections of pipe, any size pipe at all.  And if you need to turn off the flow inside the pipe, these miraculous machines swivel into place and stop the flow right then and there.  They’re called valves.

I noticed a valve on the pipe that brought water into my house.  And further back, at the street, another valve.  Once inside, the pipes ended on all sorts of valves in the kitchen and bathroom.  Yes, I’m being facetious

For some reason there’s no working kill valve on this pipe that is destroying the southern coast of the United States of America.

What reason could that be?

Perhaps the valves that can handle the extremes of pressure cost a bit more than the Home Depot variety.  Yes, I imagine they cost quite a penny, and these pennies would have come out of the profit margin column over at the oil exploitation conglomerate.

How many of these short cuts are permitted these days, placing at risk entire seas?  The water supplies of cities?  The air we breathe?  The food we eat?

This catastrophe is the direct result of gutting the regulatory agencies and handcuffing those who are charged with protecting the public interest.  Some claim that no one could have foreseen this latest leaky pipe disaster, and they say so with a straight face.

No one?

Really?

There are entire industries, sectors of the economy whose function is to “foresee” these types of problems.

A pipe never leaked oil into the ocean before?  Are you serious?  Did you actually just claim this in public?

Nearly every house in America has a piped-in water supply that incorporates:

  1. Valves, to stop the flow when needed.
  2. Redundancy, in case of failures.

The intelligentsia at Big Oil Inc. – I have been told – have all the super geniuses of the world working on this Gulf leak right now, at this very moment (after 45 days of non-stop destruction!).  Regular people aren’t smart enough to compete with this super brain trust.  God, they’re smart.

Where was all this supposed intelligence prior to the pipe failing?

Now, the oil industry is in its infancy, really.  It’s only been drilling underwater since the 1890s.  Let them destroy a few gulfs, a few seas.  It’s part of the learning curve, no?

No.

It turns out that acoustically triggered backup valves are mandated and required elsewhere in the world.  There’s no “voluntary compliance,” and the Bush/Cheney era “self-regulation” arguments are not entertained in such critical matters.

These acoustic triggers cost, lo and behold, $500,000 apiece, according to the Wall Street Journal.  And BP uses them in other platforms, just not on the one that is currently destroying the Gulf of Mexico, and the fishing industries of Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida.

There’s just not enough frothing anger out there. The industrial overlords don’t fear the public’s response.  The politicians don’t factor in popular disgust.  Why should they?  There isn’t enough disgust to translate into meaningful action.

There is a give and take where battle lines move back and forth over time.  Power shifts toward companies and industry, toward government, and sometimes even toward the public.

When a mega-disaster like this Gulf leak occurs, suddenly the political will materializes to rein in some of the more egregious industry abuses.  The industry and its lobbyists fight back, usually flooding the lawmakers with boatloads of money.  Some new standards get implemented, and then over time erode away if they are deemed too costly.

Lately, it has gotten so corrupt that even meager reforms fail to pass, blocked by openly corrupt congressmen.  They’ve sort of formed a de facto “war” on everyone who doesn’t bribe them outright.

Such is our glorious “democracy.”

Joe Giambrone is a writer, filmmaker and a Shasta College communications student who’s a member of college newspaper staff. He is married and has a daughter.

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