John Ward June 15, 2010 cynical corporate spin, Developing BP cleanup scandal, Doug Suttles, economical with truth, Erin Brockovitch condemns BP.

BP SCANDAL UPDATE: Senior VP back-writes history of clean-up worker health hazards.

BP’s Suttles….bit behind the music

Suttles tries to neuter Brockovitch scoop….serves only
to make BP look more cynical

In a carefully-timed and swiftly prepared letter to the media, BP senior Veep spokesman Doug Suttles has tried to darken the waters further regarding BP’s indiscriminate use of banned toxic cleanup agents. This appears to be merely an attempt at damage limitation re Erin Brockovitch’s Reuters piece: disguising the company’s lack of diligence and protective workwear for cleanup operatives.

In a note yesterday, Mr Suttles wrote that the new ‘multi-vessel containment plan would pose health and safety risks for workers that must be carefully managed. Several hundred people are working in a confined space with live hydrocarbons on up to four vessels.’

But this is disingenuous bollocks. Suttles is suggesting a danger lies in the future: whereas BP has been denying its existence in the present.

The Suttles letter added that the operation ‘is significantly beyond both BP and industry practice.’

So why has BP been doing it for some time (from which illnesses have resulted)? And why choose now to use inexperience as an absolution from blame?

See earlier posting for full details of BP toxic side-effects denial

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1

Marie on June 24, 2010 at 10:11 pm

It doesn't make sense that the cleanup is being started because the leak is fixed. Isn't that a waste of time and money?

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2

~~Just Me in T~~ on June 15, 2010 at 8:24 am

This entire toxic scenario is frightening……Did You Know?BP engineers alerted federal regulators at the Minerals Management Service that they were having difficulty controlling the Macondo well (Deepwater Horizon) six weeks before the disaster, according to e- mails released by the Energy and Commerce Committee.“I don’t think this would have happened on Exxon’s watch,” Tom Bower, author of “The Squeeze: Oil, Money and Greed in the 21st Century,” said in a June 11 Bloomberg Television interview. “They’d be much more careful and much more conscious of the need to supervise subcontractors.”WELL excuse me your sainted Exxon……. and Chevron and ConocoPhillips.Let’s just take a look at a few of your past misdemeanours, and then we can consider again – if the moratorium on deepwater drilling should be lifted, and place it all firmly back into your nice clean hands!http://just-me-in-t.blogspot.com/2010/06/fairy-stories-about-oil-companies.html

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3

Anonymous on June 15, 2010 at 8:14 am

Yet more smoke and mirrors. Now we wait to see if the US government climb into bed with this deception. I listened to Obamas speech yesterday, promising to leave shore-lines better than they were before the spill. At best utterly niaive and at worst, itself deception from the man who says 'Yes we can'. If only 10% of thespill hits beaches and wetlands the damage will last for years. This event will just keep growing arms and legs and eventually BPwi be a name no more, just as happened to Occidental after Piper Alpha.

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