A joint maritime investigation by the Coast Guard and the Interior Department is looking into the possibility that the firefighting response by private boats triggered events that caused the Deepwater Horizon to sink and the oil to spew. The Coast Guard’s actions are also part of this investigation.

According to the testimony outlined in a report by the Center for Public Integrity published this week:

” An official maritime investigation led by Coast Guard Capt. Hung M. Nguyen in New Orleans is examining whether the salt water that was sprayed across the burning platform overran the ballast system that kept the rig upright, changing its weight distribution, and causing it to list.”

The CPI report notes that while the investigators are taking testimony and looking at evidence about the mistakes made on the rig before the first explosion April 20,

“. . . the question of what caused the platform to collapse into the Gulf two days later remains unanswered and could prove vital to ongoing legal proceedings and congressional investigations.”

“That is because the riser pipe from which the majority of BP’s oil spewed did not start leaking until after the rig sank. Experts and some lawsuits have openly tied the sinking of the drilling vessel to the severity of the leak.”

If the firefighting efforts were the cause of the sinking of the rig and subsequent catastrophic oil spew, whose fault was this? And, could this end result been avoided?

According to the CPI report , the Coast Guard procedures state that the “[r]responsibility for fighting a fire aboard an offshore rig lies with its owner and operator . . . ” and Coast Guard vessels and aircraft focus solely on search and rescue of human survivors.

The Coast Guard, however, is required to set up an “Incident Command System” which includes having a firefighting expert supervise the private boats that responded to Deepwater Horizon distress call. The Coast Guard did not do that. In closed-door hearing, a Coast Guard search and rescue specialist testified that: ” . . .there was no attempt by the Coast Guard Command Center in New Orleans to designate a fire marshal to take charge.”

Without a person in charge, some experts believe that firefighting by the private boats was haphazard and dangerous. The continuous spraying of salt water on the rig allegedly filled the rig’s upper compartments causing its center of gravity to shift and the rig to list, and ultimately sink. It was only after the rig sunk, that the oil spew grew to a catastrophic amount.
At this point in the investigation, this scenario is still speculation. Other experts have noted that the best way to control this type of fire is with foam. For whatever reason, foam was not available.

Another expert quoted in the CPI article , Paul Bommer, a lecturer at the University of Texas and a 25-year oil industry veteran, believes that “the rig was doom by fire, regardless of how well or poorly the firefighting was coordinated.”

While there are some articles published this week claiming that the Coast Guard made the spill worse and that it’s lack of action may mitigate BP’s liability, at this point, those claims are premature. The only things to conclude from these hearings so far are: 1) that the Coast Guard did not assign a expert to supervise the firefighting efforts, and 2) it may or may not have made any difference. More facts are needed.
Further reading:

http://www.publicintegrity.org/articles/entry/2286/
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2010/07/28/did-the-federal-government-cause-the-bp-oil-spill/

General information about oil spill liability:
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/dpettit/what_bp_oil_catastrophe_legal.html

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/looking-for-liability-in-bps-gulf-oil-spill/

http://www.admiraltylawguide.com/ccpollution.html

Copyright 2010 — K.J.Collins