Yesterday and today we heard Dr. walter Tamosaitis recount 24 hours in the life of a whistleblower - a scientist who in the course of doing, well, science discovered the rawmaterial of fiasco festering at Hanford. we always knew the tanks were leaking. We always knew the situation is Bad and getting Worse. And corporate culture seems to be driving the situation to Worst Case Scenario. There is a Perfect Storm (Actualy many of them) quietly simmering in decaying tanks... awaiting vitrification. The Day After Dr. Tamosaitis aired his findings at what began as a routine roundtable with Bechtel, et al, he was told to leave the building: He was not allowed into his own office to retrieve personal effects; He was marched out of the building by Bechtel thugs in suits; And he was denied any explanation.
That's the sum of it. Now let's take a look at the proceedings in New York whwere the inquiry into What Went Wrong at Macondo, site of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Same patten repeated. This excerpted from today's New York Times: Even after dozens of witnesses, a hundred hours of testimony and three months of investigation, a chairman of a federal panel exploring the Deepwater Horizon disaster admitted Wednesday that he still lacked a simple fact: Who was the top authority on the oil rig when it exploded? This week, BP has been pushing back against the perception that it is primarily responsible for the spill. On Wednesday, the company issued a statement saying that Halliburton should have stopped work on cementing the well if its workers held genuine safety concerns. To not do so, BP said, would be “morally repugnant.” the survivors know what happened, but we won't be able to hear them over the roar of money flowing through the chambers.
- KBOO