Whether we're smart enough as a people to recognize that the most recent Gulf oil spill should be a wake-up call for providing real safety measures when drilling is yet to be determined. The obvious knee-jerk reaction to the mess was for our president to announce a moratorium on deep-water drilling, followed by even more draconian measures in the process of finding oil. Very little noise is being heard about the over-riding urgency (theoretically) of checking the some 36,000 existing wells continuing to operate in the Gulf to see whether a similar disaster is possible yet again.

Yes, we reacted the same way after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, although other areas of the modern world went ahead with building bulletproof nuclear plants.

It is a truism that absolutely nothing bad will happen if we just don't go where these problems exist -- oil, gas, coal, nuclear, etc. It is also a truism, I believe, that the greatest majority of us want the lifestyles we're living. A great part of ensuring little or no interruption to this life is to continue using all of the above means of producing energy while at the same time becoming more aware of what needs to be done to stop associated dangers, like Three Mile Island and the Gulf oil spill. It can be done and should be done, while we are continuing to work hard on alternative sources of energy that also need to be brought online, ultimately, with respective safeguards.

Getting energy brought to us safely is simply part of the package we have to not only insist on but must be set up to provide tough oversight over, and especially in the public domain. The fault of this Gulf oil spill belongs somewhere between BP and the folks who were supposed to be responsible for oversight.

Don Griffiths

It is my understanding there are some 3,800 or so platforms operating now in the Gulf of Mexico alone, with a small percentage of them being deepwater installations. That does not count the ones that operated successfully in the past but have been shutdown and removed (or toppled to form artificial reefs). For the administration of President Obama to put a moratorium on all offshore drilling is unjustified and is extremely harmful to the economy of the country and the Gulf coastal states already impacted economically. Oil producers and drilling contractors have pretty rigorous safety procedures in place to protect their very expensive drilling and production rigs and the revenue-producing product of the operations; however, the procedures must be just as rigorously followed.

BP should have gone directly to the riser cut procedure. All the other stuff was just wasted time and spilled oil. Even then, based on watching the video of the operation, they did not execute that properly. It is evident they jumped the gun. It is plainly evident there is a portion of the bent section of the riser still attached to the vertical portion when they attempted the saw cut. That is like trying to saw a long piece of lumber in half without fully supporting both sides of the cut. The shears should have been used to cut the vertical part of the riser between the bend and the planned saw cut. Even then, considering the heavy wall of the riser, one of the ROVs should have been used to provide support for the piece above the cut.

It would be interesting to know the age and experience levels of the people in charge of the work being done. So often now, one sees relatively young people running things -- often they are brilliant but lack the knowledge only experience brings. Sometimes they are just ruthless and full of themselves, in which case they do not know they are ignorant no matter how brilliant. Frequently, such people are not willing to listen to others with the experience and thus compound their errors -- much like the present administration is doing.

Byron Wooldridge

You may want to do some reading on Shell's environmental record in Nigeria and their recent oil spill there. It's also somewhat disingenuous to ignore environmental degradation issues that can be associated with natural gas drilling. I agree that a rational drilling policy is critical for improved energy independence but the industry has not helped itself in terms of persuading the general public that they handle these issues carefully or responsibly.

Linda Leeson
Manager
Quality Assurance
Open Systems International

In my opinion, the industry has gotten what they deserve. It probably should be no surprise with the previous administration's close ties to the oil industry, but it's still unpardonable to not have a failsafe wellhead. Accidents on oil platforms like this are bound to occur. To not have a proven automatic shutoff valve is simply criminally irresponsible. According to the reports in the press, the current system failed 50 percent of the time in tests.

This is an excellent example of why we need government regulations. Industry in an unregulated competitive business environment will not be responsible and act in the interests of society. If Enron, and more recently the banking industry, hasn't taught us that yet -- then we need help.

In addition to criminal negligence charges, BP and the contractors involved need to bear the total cost of this disaster. If that results in their bankruptcy -- so be it. The message to industry has to be clear. There is no tolerance for this type of irresponsibility.

And, if one is going to argue the impact of that type of response on the price of oil, it might be an excellent opportunity to have the price of oil truly reflective of its cost. I doubt you'd have much argument from the residents of the Gulf.

I applaud the Obama administration's reaction to this disaster. We can't afford to continue "business as usual" when it risks this type of result.

Tim King

The oil industry is caught in a Catch-22. The bureaucrats say, you can't drill shallow, you must drill far off shore. Yet if this incident had happened on a shallow well, we have the technology to deal with it quickly. Working a mile or more down presents technical difficulties.

You also mention Three Mile Island. This spill is similar in one regard, it is a black eye on the oil industry, but unlike TMI, it is dealing real damage to the environment. Nobody died as a result of TMI, and in fact, if the drive-by media had heralded it as "See, the technology works" it could have been a pat on the back. Instead they chose to be fear mongers and listen to the Jane Fonda types rather than technologically literate people. Then they pointed to Chernobyl and said "See, we told you it could happen". Once again, the facts were muddied by people more interested in fear mongering than the truth. What was the truth? 1) The Chernobyl reactor type was reviewed and rejected by the U.S. as too unstable and 2) We told the Soviets that they should use containment systems to prevent spreading contamination should an accident occur, (Which they rejected with, "Containments are for bunglers").

In the U.S., reactors produce clean power on a daily basis with some of them, like Turkey Point's cooling canals, being the largest saltwater crocodile habitat in the world. Clean and green with no pictures of dying Pelicans.

Thomas George Peschke
 

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