{"id":570221,"date":"2010-05-19T08:28:51","date_gmt":"2010-05-19T12:28:51","guid":{"rendered":"tag:www.southernstudies.org,2010:\/\/5.12270"},"modified":"2010-05-19T08:40:32","modified_gmt":"2010-05-19T12:40:32","slug":"whistleblower-sues-to-stop-another-bp-rig-from-operating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/570221","title":{"rendered":"Whistleblower sues to stop another BP rig from operating"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"atlantis_rig.JPG\"<\/a><\/span>By Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

A whistleblower filed a lawsuit this week to force the federal government
\n to halt operations at another massive BP oil platform in the Gulf of
\nMexico, alleging that BP never reviewed critical engineering designs for
\n the operation and is therefore risking another catastrophic accident
\nthat could “dwarf” the company’s Deepwater Horizon spill.<\/p>\n

The
\nallegations about BP’s Atlantis platform were first made last year, but
\nthey were laid out in fresh detail in the lawsuit filed in U.S. District
\n Court in Houston against Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and the
\nMinerals Management Service, the agency responsible for regulating
\noffshore drilling in the Gulf.<\/p>\n

The whistleblower is Kenneth
\nAbbott, a former project control supervisor contracted by BP who also
\ngave an interview to “60
\n Minutes” on Sunday night<\/a><\/span>. In a
\nconversation last week with ProPublica, Abbott alleged that BP failed to
\n review thousands of final design documents for systems and equipment on
\n the Atlantis platform — meaning BP management never confirmed the
\nsystems were built as they were intended – and didn’t properly file the
\ndocumentation that functions as an instruction manual for rig workers to
\n shut down operations in the case of a blowout or other emergency.<\/p>\n

Abbott
\n alleges that when he warned BP about the dangers presented by the
\nmissing documentation the company ignored his concerns and instead
\nemphasized saving money.<\/p>\n

“There were hundreds, if not thousands,
\nof drawings that hadn’t been approved and to send drawings (to the rig)
\nthat hadn’t been approved could result in catastrophic operator errors,”
\n Abbott told ProPublica. “They turned their eye away from their
\nresponsibility to make sure the overall design works. Instead they are
\nhaving bits and pieces fabricated and they are just hoping that these
\ncontractors who make all these separate pieces can pull it together and
\nmake it safe. The truth is these contractors see a piece of the puzzle;
\nthey don’t see the whole thing.”<\/p>\n

BP did not respond to a request
\nfor comment from ProPublica, but has previously addressed Abbott’s
\nconcerns in a January letter to congressional investigators stating that
\n the allegations are unfounded and that the Atlantis platform had final
\ndocumentation in place before it began operating.<\/p>\n

According to an
\n e-mail sent to Abbott by BP’s ombudsman’s office, an independent group
\nemployed by the company to address internal complaints, BP had not
\ncomplied with its own rules governing how and where the documentation
\nshould be kept but had not necessarily violated any regulations for
\ndrilling. The e-mail does not address the specifics raised in the
\nlawsuit.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the Department of the Interior said
\nthe agency would not comment on pending litigation.<\/p>\n

Congress and
\nthe Minerals and Management Service have been investigating Abbott’s
\nconcerns since last year, when he and Food and Water Watch, an
\nenvironmental organization based in Washington, D.C., first filed the
\ncomplaints. But according to both Abbott and FWW, little has been done.
\nAfter the Deepwater Horizon Gulf spill underscored their concerns, they
\ndecided to jointly file the lawsuit. Abbott was laid off shortly after
\nhe raised the concerns to BP management.<\/p>\n

According to the
\nlawsuit, by Nov. 28, 2008, when Abbott last had access to BP’s files,
\nonly half of the 7,176 drawings detailing Atlantis’ sub-sea equipment
\nhad been approved for design by an engineer and only 274 had been
\napproved “as built,” meaning they were checked and confirmed to meet
\nquality and design standards and the documentation made available to the
\n rig crew. Ninety percent of the design documents, the suit alleges, had
\n never been approved at all.<\/p>\n

The Atlantis rig is even larger than
\n the Deepwater Horizon rig that sank in April. It began producing oil in
\n 2007 and can produce 8.4 million gallons a day.<\/p>\n

The components
\ninclude some of the critical infrastructure to protect against a spill.
\nAccording the suit, none of the sub-sea risers – the pipelines and hoses
\n that serve as a conduit for moving materials from the bottom of the
\nocean to the facility — had been “issued for design.” The suit also
\nalleges that none of the wellhead documents were approved, and that none
\n of the documents for the manifolds that combine multiple pipeline flows
\n into a single line at the seafloor had been reviewed for final use.<\/p>\n

Directions for how to use the piping and instrument systems that
\nhelp shut down operations in the event of an emergency, as well as the
\ncomputer software used to enact an emergency shutdown, had also not been
\n approved, the lawsuit says. According to the lawsuit, 14 percent those
\ndocuments had been approved for construction, and none received final
\napproval to ensure they were built and functioning properly.<\/p>\n

“BP’s
\n worst-case scenario indicates that an oil spill from the BP Atlantis
\nFacility could be many times larger than the current oil spill from the
\nBP Deepwater Horizon,” the lawsuit states. “The catastrophic Horizon oil
\n spill would be a mere drop in the bucket when compared to the potential
\n size of a spill from the BP Atlantis facility.”<\/p>\n

It is not clear
\nfrom the lawsuit or the limited statements made by BP or federal
\nregulators if BP has corrected the documentation problem since Abbott
\nwas laid off.<\/p>\n

Abbott told ProPublica he raised the documentation
\nissues repeatedly in e-mails and conversations with management, “saying
\nthis was critical to operator safety and rig safety.”<\/p>\n

“They just
\nignored my requests for help,” he said. “There seemed to be a big
\nemphasis to push the contractors to get things done. And that was always
\n at the forefront of the operation.”<\/p>\n

(Photo of the Atlantis rig from GVA’s website<\/a>.)<\/i><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica A whistleblower filed a lawsuit this week to force the federal government to halt operations at another massive BP oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico, alleging that BP never reviewed critical engineering designs for the operation and is therefore risking another catastrophic accident that could “dwarf” the company’s Deepwater Horizon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5733,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-570221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5733"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570221\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}