The past month’s mainstream news has been smothered with BP’s Gulf of Mexico crude oil, and rightfully so. This oil spill is of disastrous proportions, and the fact that so little is known, or at least spoken of, is so very concerning.

There are conflicting report of how much oil has spilled, how much has been contained, how far it has spread, plans on how to stop the leaking well, and the extent to which it has or will impact local, regional, and perhaps even global marine life. I would tend to believe that this is the sad case of the media and public being left in the dark.

It is IMPOSSIBLE to operate such a sophisticated deepwater/offshore operation without calculating these types of spill risks, and hardware malfunctions. It is equally impossible to not consider current capabilities in the technologies required to work at the depths in question. 5000 feet ain’t no picnic, even for robotics.

I’ve been involved in marine operations for my entire life, and can tell you that plans are made for plans that are made for plans. This holds true for every scale and scope of undersea operation out there, and it has to. Gray areas turn to ‘black’ when operations are outside the scope or body of knowledge of those making decisions – we aren’t being told everything because there were mistakes made, not accidents necessarily.

All we can do is hope that those responsible are held accountable and respond appropriately, not only in their best interests, in ours, our future’s, and in the interests of this planet that we all call home.

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