Another oil rig has blown up in the Gulf of Mexico. The Vermilion 380 is owned by Mariner Energy which was recently purchased by by Apache Energy, according to Think Progress. Together, these two companies have paid $745,000 in fines to the Minerals Management Service in 2010 alone, according to my review of public records.
Reviewing the Minerals Management Service database, I see that Apache paid a $435,000 fine on April 23 for the following lapse which apparently unfolded over a period of weeks in January 2009:
The level controller had been removed from the caisson sump, therefore the sump system could not automatically maintain oil at a level sufficient to prevent discharge into the Gulf of Mexico.
Apache also paid a $255,000 fine in April for the following infraction:
On May 2, 2009, the Surface-Controlled Subsurface Safety Valve (SCSSV) at Well JA-001, failed due to a leakage rate greater than the allowable rate of 5 cubic feet/minute. Records indicate that no corrective action to remove, repair, reinstall, or replace was taken prior to the May 19, 2009, notification of inspection. (Emphasis added.)
Mariner Energy paid a $35,000 fine in May for the following infraction:
Operator conducted operations without an H2S Contingency Plan with confirmed concentrations and volumes of H2S that could potentially result in atmospheric concentrations of 20 ppm.
Mariner Energy was also fined $20,000 in June for the following lapse:
The heliport on a platform was taken out of service due to a fire, leaving a boat landing as the only access to the structure. The boat landing was taken out of service during an inspection due to corroded grating and missing handrails. Personnel did not have a safe way to visit this platform.
Original Reporting, please credit Lindsay Beyerstein.
[Photo credit: For illustration, a photo of an unidentified oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico by kk+, Creative Commons.]
Update: Apache paid another spectacular fine of $446,000 in 2007 for repeatedly neglecting blow out prevention (BOP) equipment. A failed BOP was the ultimate cause of the Deepwater Horizon spill:
Records verified that there was not a low or high pressure test conducted on the following BOP related equipment: HCR choke valve, manual choke valve, HCR kill valve, manual kill valve, kill line check valve, IBOP, TIW valve and choke manifold. These violations were for 2 BOP test periods, 7/19/2006 and 7/26/2006. A mud-pit-level indicator with both visual and audible warning devices had not been installed. There was not a BOP station installed in the work basket of the snubbing unit. The secondary power source (air supply) was isolated with a closed manual block valve located on the inlet piping to the accumulator.
This was before it Apache bought Mariner.
A fine over $400,000 is epic relative to typical penalties for offshore drilling violators listed in the MMS database. Most fines in the database range from a few thousand dollars and a few tens of thousands of dollars. To give you some idea how badly you have to screw up to be fined over $400,000 twice: Chevron USA was only fined $350,000 in 2001 for a hydrogen sulfide gas leak that damaged the platform, in the opinion of investigators, could have killed everyone on board and destroyed the platform.
Last week, the indefatigable AIDS Healthcare Foundation launched the latest salvo in its long running battle to pressure California's occupational health and safety agency to enforce the bloodborne pathogens standard on porn sets: Lodging a complaint against porn magnate Larry Flynt with Cal-OSHA and supporting the charge with a five-foot stack of Flynt-produced DVDs.
California is one of only two states where it is unequivocally legal to make hardcore porn. The state also has some of the toughest occupational health and safety laws in the country. The bloodborne pathogens standard stipulates that workers are entitled to condoms or equivalent protection on the job. Condoms are the norm in gay porn, and in the straight porn industry in Brazil, but straight porn producers in California routinely ignore the law.
The porn industry is always trying to tell us how mainstream it has become over the years, and indeed, the industry is very mainstream when it comes to signing multi-million dollar distribution deals with major satellite TV companies and hotel chains. But when it comes to protecting the health of workers, the industry wants to cling to its outlaw status instead of taking on the responsibilities that other employers shoulder as a matter of course. If you're a regular movie producer and you want to depict an actor running through a burning building, it's up to you to figure out how to do it safely. My story on condoms, OSHA, and porn appears on Slate's Double X.
[Photo credit: ClixYou, Creative Commons. Slogan reads: For love, wear a condom.]
Republican senate candidate Sharron Angle is a staunch defender of traditional marriage. However, one of Angle's campaign donors one-upped her in the tradition department. While leafing through FEC reports this morning, I discovered a record of one Maria Gladd of Concord, CA giving Angle's campaign $250 in June. The FEC asks donors to identify their employer and occupation for the record. Gladd listed her employer as "Husband" and her occupation as "Slave."
[Photo: 1flatworld, Creative Commons.]
The secularist Center for Inquiry issued a press release on Friday headlined: "The Center for Inquiry Urges That Ground Zero Be Kept Religion-Free." The press release outraged many CFI supporters, including me. In the original release, CFI opposed the construction of an Islamic cultural center, or any other house of worship, in the "immediate vicinity" of Ground Zero.
The old press release ignored basic facts. The proposed community center, Park51, is neither a house of worship, nor in the immediate vicinity of the former World Trade Center. The center will be two blocks away from the Vesey Street side of the WTC footprint, and even further away from the Ground Zero main drag on Church Street. Park51 is about seven blocks away from the planned 9-11 Tribute Center on Liberty Street, just off Church. A quick glance at a map of Lower Manhattan should convince anyone that this whole "controversy" was ginned up. You can't even see Park Place from the former WTC site.
The other factual problem with the initial press release's exhortation to "keep" "Ground Zero" "religion-free" is that the area around the Twin Towers has never been, and will never be, religion-free (or strip club-free, or discount shoe emporium-free). This is downtown New York City, folks. The major Ground Zero tourist strip is Church Street, which backs onto the old St. Paul's churchyard. There's already an honest-to-goodness mosque about as close to Ground Zero as Park51 would be. I find it ironic that an ostensibly secular organization would buy into the idea that there's a magic zone around the former World Trade Center where city life has to be suspended forever out of reverence for the dead.
CFI has issued a new press release with the intent of clarifying its stance on the proposed Islamic community center in Lower Manhattan. Unfortunately, the new press release isn't much of an improvement over its predecessor.
In the new release, CFI reaffirms its commitment to religious freedom and asserts that there should be no legal barrier to Park51 from being built. That's nice. It's also little behind the times. The last potential legal impediment to building Park51 dissolved three weeks ago when the Landmarks Preservation Commission unanimously rejected a bad-faith bid to preserve the old Burlington Coat Factory at 51 Park Place as an architectural treasure for the ages. Mayor Bloomberg came out strongly in favor of Park51 three weeks ago.
In the new press release, CFI repeats its request that the debate over Park51 not be "politicized." I don't even know what that's supposed to mean. At this point, not even the most retrograde mosque-basher believes that any branch of the city, state, or federal government has the slightest power to stop this development. Yet the facts haven't put the slightest dent in the demagoguery. Politicians still have a First Amendment right to rabble-rouse around Park51. When they do, are they "politicizing" the issue, if they aren't proposing a specific law or policy to ban the development? This is a political issue, regardless. It's a question of what kind of society we want to live in. Do we free-thinking humanists want to fight for a free, open, tolerant society or do we want to join the Christianist pile-on whenever a more vulnerable world religion is on the ropes?
I'm glad the new press release explicitly rejects the insinuation that all Muslims are terrorists. Baby steps, baby steps.
[Photo credit: David Shankbone, Creative Commons.]
Beverly Willett spent five years and thousands of dollars contesting her divorce in court and lost. Now that New York has become the 50th state to adopt no-fault divorce, she's "heartsick" that others won't have the same opportunity to impoverish themselves and tie up the courts in a grim struggle for control. Willett's essay in the Daily Beast is the most compelling argument for no-fault divorce I've ever read.
[Photo credit: Girl_onthe_LES, Creative Commons.]
Focal Point is a blog about politics, ideas, photography, and feminism. It began in 2004 as the independent blog Majikthise. (Majikthise archives are available here.)
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