Federal Regulator Repeatedly Failed to Inspect Deepwater Horizon – Including for One-Quarter of Obama Presidency
EmailThough federal regulations require offshore drilling locations to be inspected by the Department of the Interior's Minerals Mining Service every 30 days, those inspections have repeatedly not happened since the Deepwater Horizon site was permitted by MMS in 2001 – including one out of every four months since President Obama's inauguration.
ABC News has learned that in the 16 months from January 2009 through April 2010 MMS failed to inspect Deepwater Horizon four times – in May 2009, August 2009, December 2009, and January 2010.
The reasons for the lack of inspections, sources said, were logistic.
In May and August 2009, the proper twin engine helicopter needed to fly to the Deepwater Horizon site was being serviced.
Inclement weather prevented flights to the site for 12 out of 22 work days in December 2009, with maintenance to the helicopter consuming another two days, leaving eight days for the inspection – which was not carried out.
The next month, January 2010, inclement weather prevented flights for eight of the 19 work days, with four days impacted because of maintenance. But even in those seven days available, again, the inspection was not carried out.
Inspections were carried out in February, March, and April of this year.
The lack of regular inspections is not a new development. In the past five years – 60 months — Deepwater Horizon was inspected 48 times. And in the 104 months since September 2001 when MMS permitted the site, Deepwater Horizon was inspected 88 times.
“It is MMS’s goal to inspect drilling rigs on a monthly basis,” an Interior Department official said, “but there are various reasons why a drilling rig may not be inspected every month, such as if helicopters are grounded because of inclement weather or rig inactivity due to hurricanes; if a rig moves between multiple locations in a month; if a rig is on location and preparing to drill, but not actually drilling; or if a rig is at the end of its work on a location but is preparing to move off.”
-Jake Tapper
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So perhaps the inspection process is flawed? Or maybe that is has become so routine that things get glazed over.
Or maybe something happened that had never been considered. It’s early to tell, but it doesn’t look like you can blame this on lack of oversight.
We should probably focus, like others have said in other comment threads, on stopping the flow of oil and cleaning it up.
Posted by: J.R. | May 18, 2010, 4:36 pm 4:36 pm
So they missed some inspection, that’s not the point.
The following is key.
“Inspections were carried out in February, March, and April of this year.” – ABC News
Those inspections failed to find the problems that were stacking up for this well.
So, you get government oversight and it’s useless.
So, the Obamalogical thing to do is add more oversight?
I have the answer but it will never be implemented.
Posted by: Noz | May 18, 2010, 4:43 pm 4:43 pm
There’s the head that will likely roll.
Posted by: Rick McDaniel | May 18, 2010, 5:09 pm 5:09 pm
The dog ate my homework and I had to
stay home to wash my hair. Excuses, excuses. Looks like Obama and Bush
are handholding on this one.
Posted by: wis134 | May 18, 2010, 5:11 pm 5:11 pm
the helicopter broke my goodness we only have one give that helo to pelosi
Posted by: charlie | May 18, 2010, 6:29 pm 6:29 pm
So let’s see if I got this right. Inspections were not done 4 out of 16 months of the Obama administration. In total 88 inspections over the 104 months of operation. That’s 16 missed inspections in 104 months. Or 12 for the Bush administration’s 88 months and 4 for the Obama administration’s 16 months. Seems that’s 13.6% failure for Bush, and 25% failure for Obama. To be honest, neither of these numbers trouble me. What troubles me is the rig was inspected the month it failed, yet passed inspection. Is this a failure of the inspection process, or the price of doing business? Drilling a mile under water is a whole lot more prone to issues than under a 1000 feet or less, and apparently a lot harder to recover from in case of a disaster. If it were up to me, I’d say move closer to shore.
Posted by: Murray | May 18, 2010, 6:54 pm 6:54 pm
How does MORE regulations cure, INCOMPETENT or hoplessly CORRUPT government regulators??? (Crickets…)
Posted by: CBA | May 18, 2010, 6:54 pm 6:54 pm
If the inspections followed the rules and procedures in-place, then not inspecting platform occasionally is OK. Rules allow for inspections to be skipped, so no issue when missed…
I don’t get the “one quarter” calculation though, quarters are contiguous, and missed inspections were not sequential, think the headline is misleading (one fourth of inspections skipped might have been better headline).
Posted by: N2vip | May 18, 2010, 6:58 pm 6:58 pm
Kick BP off the site. Use the U.S. military, private contractors, Limbaugh’s butt-I don’t care. Stop the damn leaks! Meanwhile, the DOJ should sue BP to attach all their U.S. assets.
BP is picking up the WHOLE tab for this thing.
Posted by: B.Bear | May 18, 2010, 7:14 pm 7:14 pm
BP could have stopped the flow immediately but it would have caused the oil to STOP. They could have crushed the pipe with 200 ton cement block. BUt no they want to siphon it up to a waiting tanker. Why has the govt questioned this technique?? What a stange and crimnal enterprise is running that show??
Posted by: buzz | May 19, 2010, 1:04 am 1:04 am
If you want to be fair it was Bush and Obama who dropped the ball here. Eight years of doing nothing and Cheney being involved with the companies hired to do many of the jobs. Halliburton has poured the cement for the seals on both oil wells which have exploded. I think some blame belongs here. Now that Obama is going to put harsher sanctions on oil wells, just watch the republicans rally against it like they are doing with the banks. They removed the sanctions and we had a failure of the banks and now that this president wants to put some teeth into keeping them honest, the party of “NO” rises again. Shamefully people listen to a shill like Beck who is involved with many of his sponsors and is raking in money and getting fat off your listening to him. Also Hannity who is now claiming Obama is taking money away from the soldiers. This is not true, check the facts…the pentagon has increased the money to the soldiers by 1.4% and for weapons 3.4% a total of 18 billion dollars. But the lemmings who listen to these two will not take the time to check this out. Another point I might make is the republicans are still holding up the nominations on 50 of Obama’s nominees who are needed to work on many of his projects. 20 months held up for no reason other than they could. I think this is insane. If the cannot come up with a reason why they should not be approved after a reasonable amount of time..they should be approved regardless. Otherwise they need to express why and publically name just who is holding them up. Now they can do with without letting us know who is holding them up. This is a ploy to keep Obama from being successful at anything. What they really are doing is hurting the country as we need these people at these jobs.
Posted by: talmag | May 19, 2010, 9:44 am 9:44 am
@talmag: you clearly have no idea what the engineering difficulties are in this situation. If they could have stopped flow and killed the well they would have, the cost to drill a new one is a fraction of the cost of the clean up. The only resason for pumping into a tanker now is to contain the spill while they drill a pressure relief well to allow them to kill the current well.
@everyone else: Deep water drilling is difficult and spills like this will continue to occur without further regulation. As long as the World sucks the XXXX of the petroleum system this business will continue. Get out of your cars and stop blaming anyone beyond yourselves, the ultimate consumer that needs more petroleum at lower prices.
Posted by: Guest | May 19, 2010, 11:45 am 11:45 am
Good comment Guest, but let me correct one of your lines.
Deep water drilling is difficult and spills like this will continue to occur with or without further regulation.
You’re welcome.
It would be better to drill in water less than 1000 feet deep.
Another good point you made Guest.
Posted by: Noz | May 19, 2010, 12:02 pm 12:02 pm
@noz: good point, thanks. Further regluation can implement better disaster response plans, although every disaster is different.
@Guest: drilling in water >1000 ft may in some cases be easier to recover from in some situations but if you look at the well that the horizon had just drilled, (aprox 10km deep in shallow water) a disaster in this case with failure of the plugs and bop would be very serious because of the extreme pressures.
Unfortunately the World picks the easy to reach fruit first so the nature of the reserve base globally must look to deep water, ultra deep surface, arctic, and other reserves that will continue to push the envelope of technology.
@B.Bear: like it or not BP are the experts with respect to this situation. Kicking them off the lease to bring in the military, (not a cross section of the US’ best and brightest) and contractors, (better than the military but still don’t attract the best) would only prolong the solution. Luckily it looks as though the best and brightest from many of the oil companies and many contractors working the gulf are helping with a solution.
Posted by: Guest | May 19, 2010, 12:31 pm 12:31 pm
Correction to last post <1000ft, alligator eats the big number… ;)
Posted by: Guest | May 19, 2010, 12:46 pm 12:46 pm