Author Topic: California oil spill  (Read 6280 times)

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Gypsi

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California oil spill
« on: May 30, 2015, 01:23:07 pm »
Jen is this near you?  Photos at link.  Seems there wasn't an auto shutoff on the line.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/claudiakoerner/stunning-photos-show-scope-of-105000-gallon-oil-spill-on-cal#.koVaOe1ZP

Offline Ray

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Re: California oil spill
« Reply #1 on: May 30, 2015, 08:28:33 pm »
Just plain disgusting. Start putting some CEO's in JAIL, instead of corporate fines, and then watch the industry improve it's environmental record.

Offline Perry

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Re: California oil spill
« Reply #2 on: May 30, 2015, 09:35:39 pm »
Just plain disgusting. Start putting some CEO's in JAIL, instead of corporate fines, and then watch the industry improve it's environmental record.

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Offline lazy shooter

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Re: California oil spill
« Reply #3 on: May 30, 2015, 09:53:48 pm »
There is somewhere near 2.5 million miles of oil bearing pipelines in the USA.  Do you really think we can put someone in jail because of a pipeline rupture.  I plan and drill oil and gas wells, and thank God, they didn't put me in jail when I made a mistake.  (I never caused a spill or blow-out)

Maybe we could just whip beekeepers that let aggressive bees swarm.

Gypsi

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Re: California oil spill
« Reply #4 on: May 30, 2015, 10:54:28 pm »
I think Ray said CEO's.  You know, like Tillerson, who is suing a fracking company to keep them from fracking near his house, even though Exxon Mobil (which he is CEO of) is one of the leaders in hydraulic fracturing world wide. 

Not engineers, not the guys doing the actual work. The decision makers need held accountable, and a piddly little $20 million fine for BP is nothing, chump change. 

Don't know about the Texas firm who spilled in California.  Trouble is most of our pipeline is over 40 years old and some of the oil they are running through it is very caustic - at least that is my understanding, the tar sands oil has to be diluted and the diluting fluids are real tough on old pipes. Mayflower Arkansas will never be the same after theirs, guess we need to find out who owned that pipe.  Think maybe Tillerson needs some striped pajamas or an orange jumpsuit, because I believe that was an Exxon pipe.
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Offline Ray

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Re: California oil spill
« Reply #5 on: May 31, 2015, 07:20:07 am »
Thank you, Gypsi.
Fines to a corporation are just passed on to the consumers. They MAY have an effect on the dividends and performance bonuses, but they probably have a larger effect on the worker bees ( this is where I envision engineers, lazy)  of the corporations.

Offline Perry

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Re: California oil spill
« Reply #6 on: May 31, 2015, 07:32:40 am »
If it can be proven that there was neglect, or any failure due to neglect, I don't think monetary compensation alone is a deterrent. Yes, mistakes happen, that's why we have the word, but anything other demands punishment.
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Offline lazy shooter

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Re: California oil spill
« Reply #7 on: May 31, 2015, 09:44:29 am »
Do we really think the CEO of a corporation has the time to check on the operational procedures of each pipeline?  There are valves that are computer operated, flow meters, pump stations, maintenance crews, right-of-way inspectors, and God only knows how many other individual crafts necessary to run the pipeline.  The CEO is the big boss, but he doesn't get to hire all the underlings.  He is getting a report from someone that got a report from someone that got a report from someone. 

In the end, we consumers pay for all of it.  I don't like the idea of burying pipelines in the earth that provides most of the food we eat, but I do like to eat and I do like to drive my vehicle.  We are a hydrocarbon based society, and no one cares more about the environment than I do, but we can't put people in jail for mistakes.  Remember the old adage, "doctors bury their mistakes."  I think, but don't know, that a doctor's mistake killed my mom, but I also think he did what he thought was right.  We all make mistakes, but I have never intentionally made a mistake.  The more uncomfortable we make the CEO's job, the more it will cost to hire him, and more we all pay for services. 

There are instances in my industry where one can go to jail for being intentionally negligent because these issues can lead to injury and death.  In all of these cases, I am the one directly in charge of the operation, and I could be intentionally negligent.  One such example is wearing a respirator.  If I put someone in a respirator, I have to know that person has been fit tested for that particular respirator and had a spirometer test within the last year.  For that reason, if respirators are necessary, I have a qualified safety company representative on  site to manage all respirator use.  We sometimes encounter hydrogen sulfide gas.  It will kill one quick at higher concentrations.  I bet the CEO of this pipeline wasn't that close to this oil spill.










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Gypsi

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Re: California oil spill
« Reply #8 on: May 31, 2015, 10:58:55 am »
Many of these pipelines are due for upgrades and/ or replacement, but the CEO listens to the CFO who says we will make more profit if we just leave that pipe alone.   The CEO KNEW the tarsands oil was more corrosive before it ate through the 40 year old pipe in Mayflower Arkansas.

And the decision of the CEO to take that advice is why he should be liable. Tillerson is suing a fracking company to keep them from fracking near his home because he KNOWS it will lower his property value. But he has no problem lowering anyone elses.  Double standard.
Orange jumpsuit is the current attire.

You make big money for taking big risks, but you take your luck like it comes and some of these guys luck needs to run out. I drive less every year. I use less electricity every year and when I go solar I will go off grid. I do not want to give these fools one penny

Offline Zweefer

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Re: California oil spill
« Reply #9 on: May 31, 2015, 11:13:51 am »
Thank you Lazy for providing a counter argument.  I too lean more toward your side of this one.  There should be some accountability, sure, but i don't think going after the CEOs would help at all.  This has proven to be the case in the past (e.g. banking). 
I understand the knee jerk reaction to want to punish someone, to put a specific face to blame when a tragedy like this happens, but sometimes you just can't.
Keeping of bees is like the direction of sunbeams.
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Offline brooksbeefarm

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Re: California oil spill
« Reply #10 on: May 31, 2015, 11:28:01 am »
Follow the money, who's only interest is to make more money while other people pay for it. ( No, i don' want to get into politics  :no:) If this junk keeps getting into our ground water? California?s water problem now will seem a minor Problem.  :o. Jack
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Gypsi

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Re: California oil spill
« Reply #11 on: May 31, 2015, 11:42:09 am »
I don't care if they actually go to prison - that isn't the point. I want them to make conservative decisions on replacing pipe, not dumping used fracking water into aquifers, and if they break stuff they need to pay enough to fix it plus enough not to want to break it again. Our pipeline safety board has unfilled seats and is not doing its job.

and don't get me started on TCEQ - They are a something. They answer the phone. They will test air quality, I had the frack operations around me tested a couple of times, but when the regulator blew I heard it go and just called the fire department.   I own my mineral rights. No lease, thank you very much.
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Offline Slowmodem

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Re: California oil spill
« Reply #12 on: May 31, 2015, 12:50:10 pm »
Here are the reality options:  Oil by pipe, oil by rail, oil by ship.  I believe each method needs to have strict monitoring/testing of their equipment on an established frequency.  Bear in mind, that when ever a regulation is issued, there will be those crying about over-regulation, and the price of petroleum products will going to go up.

This is not a political posting.  This is just how I see things now and in the future.
Greg Whitehead
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Offline iddee

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Re: California oil spill
« Reply #13 on: May 31, 2015, 02:07:47 pm »
I think they should only hire perfect people to run and work on oil transportation systems. People who will never make a mistake, have an accident, make a wrong decision, wait a bit too long to do something, ETC. If only perfect people were hired, we wouldn't have spills and things.

OR.......................

We can keep living on this little earth and fix things as they happen.
“Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.”
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Offline lazy shooter

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Re: California oil spill
« Reply #14 on: May 31, 2015, 02:14:56 pm »
What Iddee said.

Gypsi

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Re: California oil spill
« Reply #15 on: May 31, 2015, 02:22:31 pm »
And I think the people working should do their jobs with an eye to future generations instead of just profits.  Canada is about to have its own problems, Enbridge has already flooded the Kalamazoo river with sinking tar sands oil, and they want to increase the flow through line 9. If I, with a high school education, can figure this out, why can't all those smart people at the top figure it out?  Pipes will leak. I go over the lines on my truck, rubber ones annually. This is not rocket science.  (and my truck is 40 and its brake lines are 1 year old now)

http://www.desmog.ca/2015/05/27/groups-want-pipeline-regulator-explain-wont-order-safety-test-enbridge-line-9
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Offline lazy shooter

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Re: California oil spill
« Reply #16 on: May 31, 2015, 02:46:50 pm »
If one want to worry, try worrying about the nuclear generators in the world, some of which are in the USA.  Or, worry that our rivers of the world are flowing less and less fresh water into the oceans, which means that the estuaries are dwindling away.  This is especially true in the lower 48 states.  As the estuaries die, so does the fish population in the oceans.  What about when our acquifers, like the Ogallala are depleted, and our farm produce is drastically reduced by one-half or more.

Offline iddee

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Re: California oil spill
« Reply #17 on: May 31, 2015, 03:01:26 pm »
Would you take the job of oil company CEO if a pipeline leak would mean 20 years in prison? Look at the real side and try to understand that humans are not infallible.
“Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.”
― Shel Silverstein

Gypsi

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Re: California oil spill
« Reply #18 on: May 31, 2015, 03:03:02 pm »
I am worried about all of it Lazy. I would not live near Glen Rose, the plant there was built on a fault line, something environmentalists in Texas have known since at least the early 80's.  I sign all pro alternative energy petitions, and I am actively anti fracking ever since Range Resources somehow got the EPA to quit investigating the flaming water coming out of the faucet in Weatherford, TX. This is not personal or about you. I was at the EPA town hall on fracking in 2010 in downtown Fort Worth, I am the one that commented that the people hauling the highly classified, highly toxic used fracking fluid were likely going to be paid about 2 steps above minimum wage and I was worried about shortcuts and dumps in farmers fields and on ranchland.

My energy plan is all wind through Champion. I realize my electricity may not come from actual windmills but at least Champion has to buy offsets into wind energy in order to offer this plan and it is what I can do. 

I buy almost no plastics or stuff made from oil, to the extent that it is humanly possible. I recycle, do not waste water, produce almost all my own fruits and vegetables organically with as much rain water as I can manage supplemented by very expensive Fort Worth water. Which is why I raise a lot of my garden on a pond. I use less water per pound of produce.  I use no chemical fertilizers which come from oil, re-use contractor's trash bags until they fall apart and I drive a 1975 chevy pickup which gets almost as good a mileage as a new one AND I could maybe talk it into running on chicken manure if I needed to. I do not use my electric heat, get my firewood by running around helping people with my little electric chain saw. I raise my own chickens for eggs, fertilizer and occasionally I cook one. No hormones, no chinese processing and no chemicals. I bought some canned alaskan salmon today. I am almost afraid to handle it without a geiger counter to test, it is the only seafood I occasionally eat, whether alaskan or chilean. The chilean is loaded with more mercury (from coal combustion), the alaskan probably is carrying fukushima radiation. My doctor insists I eat some kind of fish and that I can just barely stand.  Scary food.

In other words I do not just talk the talk, I walk the walk. I am not socially acceptable. I have no interest in flying to Cancun  on vacation with my daughter. I could care less if it makes me not socially acceptable. It is who I am, if she wants her kid to know me, she knows where I live. And if not, I am working to leave all my grandchildren a better world. 

The number one biggest problem on this planet is over population but I think rising sea levels and bigger storms are about to take care of that for us.  And the lord have mercy on our souls, we brought this on ourselves. Because if no one bought that oil, and coal, and electricity, we wouldn't be tearing the earth up burning it.

Gypsi

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Re: California oil spill
« Reply #19 on: May 31, 2015, 03:05:00 pm »
Iddee, if a CEO got 20 years in prison, he would get it in a white collar federal penitentiary like Martha Stewart did, and he would serve maybe a year, because NO one serves their full sentence, and if that stepped 10 more CEO's into thinking before they took shortcuts I would be fine with that.

If I ran over someone with my truck and injured them I would do at least a year in prison and it wouldn't be cushy.  These companies are making a lot of people sick and killing some and it is only getting worse.
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