Deception On The Forefront of The Gulf

Central University

Deception On The Forefront of The Gulf

BP Oil spill
Michael C. Whitfield

2011

Deception On The Forefront of The Gulf

Deception On The Forefront of The Gulf BP Oil Spill

Can a manmade hazard be equivalent to that of a natural disaster? If this is possible , what are some different consequences that should be incurred if a person or a group of people create a disaster so bad, that its effects are seen around the world? What if these people tried to mislead the public in a way tha t pushed the limelight off of themselves? How will the public respond when they find out what kind of deception have been laid upon them? I will be answering all of these questions within this analysis of the great oil spill of 2010 off the Gulf of Mexico . Throughout this essay , I will be using one of the principles of verbal messages . The meaning of a message can deceive , and I will show exactly how that can happen during this paper . The theory that message meanings can deceive comes from the communication principles of verbal messages . Lying is a type of deception in which a message is sent with the intention of giving false information . There are many different ways to lie . Pro-social deception tends to be used for the betterment of community or group . Self-enhancement is used as a way of making ourselves look better . Selfish deception is used to cover up things that we dont want known . Finally , anti-social deception is used to hurt a group or community .

Deception On The Forefront of The Gulf There are many different ways in which one can deceive or lie;

exaggeration , minimization , substitution , equivocation , and omission of details . In every day life these are normal occurrences . Everyone lies , everyone deceives , it is the quantity of lies and the type of deception that gives us a basis for how or if the deceiver should be punished . If a large company or corporation lies or tries to deceive the public by trying to push something under the rug or by minimizing what actually occurred , what should be the punishment , or should there even be one? On April 20th 2010 the largest oil spill in the history of the United States occurred , killing 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon rig . The oil spill was centralized on the Gulf Coast of Mexico at the Macondo well owned by BP . Louisiana was the first to become affected by this disaster . By June 2010 the spill was making appearances on the shores of South Eastern states such as: Mississippi , Alabama , and Florida . The tourism and fishing industries of these states were both heavily affected . This catastrophe lasted a total of 86 days . In September 2010 the well was capped off . Although the leak has been resolved , the long-term effects remain unknown . The threats concerning wildlife have the possibility of ranging from months to years , because initial reports indicated that seventy-five percent of the oil had been evaporated , dissolved, or collected . Later reports corrected the original statistics, which stated that only twenty-five percent of the oil

Deception On The Forefront of The Gulf

remained , whereas independent researchers found that up to half of the oil still lingered in the sea . Reports originally estimated that 1 ,000 barrels of oil gushed from the Macondo well per day , that estimation later increased to 5 ,000 barrels a day and eventually reached 60 ,000 barrels per day. The government tried to keep the spill hush hush so much so , that they were not allowing the public to know the actual facts from groups such as National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) . The NOAA went to the White House to request permission to release their worst-case model from the accident , which was denied. Halliburton was put in charge of creating the cement slurry to reinforce to oil well for work that was going occur on April 19 TH, 2010, which is located a mile below sea level . The cement was known to be unstable from previous tests . Fred Bartlit Jr . an investigative reporter said in his letter , Halliburton and BP both had results in March showing that a very similar foam slurry design to the one actually pumped at the Macondo well would be unstable , but neither acted upon the data . After three tests showing poor results for the mixture the fourth looked more promising , yet the product would not be available by the date work was to start . BPs way of resolving the problem was to throw $20 billion in a lump sum settlement for all the major defendants involved with this spill . Kenneth Feinberg was placed in charged of handling the compensation fund , the same

Deception On The Forefront of The Gulf person who dealt with the 9/11 victims fund . Bartlit is looking for a cause not

to accuse or place the blame on anyone; he is looking for answers to ensure that this never happens again , and to inform the public of the facts in real time . BP and Halliburton should have run more tests on the cement mixture before using it on the Macondo well , and taken the extra time to wait for the fourth test mixture . With these few adjustments they could have prevented a worldwide disaster , saving eleven lives , millions of dollars of economic resources , and protecting oceanic wildlife . While researching though all the data of the spill along side of the information about deception using the verbal principle of communication , it was easy to come to a conclusion of what was done to deceive the public . Minimization and omission took part in keeping the truth from the public . At the beginning of the leak BPs representatives were playing down the event , as if it were not a big deal . It was also very clear to me that it is easy to lie about what you know and what you dont . Omission of details is just as bad as lying itself , the different rates of flow that the spill was gushing out seemed to change on a daily basis , and the difference of rate of flow between day one and day 86 was an astounding difference . That is the difference between one thousand, and sixty thousand barrels of oil per day . The initial number was either a guess or a lie , Im thinking it was more the latter.

Deception On The Forefront of The Gulf Nothing is black and white , there is an occasional gray line , but for the most part something is either good or bad . There are aspects about the

deception employed by BP that could be seen in a positive light . If this company went right out and started spurting off statistics and facts in one hundred percent accuracy , there could have been a panic worldwide . It is possible that the panic could have been so great , that there were deaths as a result of it , there may have been people on the street corner shouting at the top of their lungs " the end is near ." There could have been many different outcomes should the process of this event be repeated in a different matter . But the thing about communication is that when you say or do something , you are not able to take it back . It is out there for the whole world to see . There is no turning back . There were many more negative aspects about the event because the whole truth wasnt told . The ramification for this deception is much larger than would have been had the truth been told . The pollution that was left by the incident is still being cleaned up . There are many investigations still going on about the incident and the affects from it . The past is the past and the future is the future , we cant change what happened in the past , but we can try to resolve the problem now so there are no problems in the future . I believe that this whole incident should not have occurred . There are measures in place to prevent these types of things , but unfortunately there are also ways around them . There needs to be stricter regulations about drilling for

Deception On The Forefront of The Gulf oil on the ocean . The safety precautions need to be improved and the equipment used need to be updated and checked frequently . This disaster

should have been prevented , but unfortunately it is easier for larger companies to bypass small and seemingly unimportant regulations or safety precautions in order to save a few bucks . The impact of this phenomenon will be talked about for years to come . This is not the type of story that will blow over in a night . People will be talking about this for generations . It will soon be in our history books and we will be teaching it to our children . Hopefully we will be able to teach our children about this and the lies that caused this incident to occur , and perhaps the future generations will learn from these mistakes . Unfortunately, if theres one thing that history teaches us , is that we repeatedly make the same mistakes over and over again . There is only one benefit that I can see through the occurrence of this event . Perhaps , by the occurrence of this event we will have the appropriate measures in place so that this type of disaster never happens again . It is possible if this event didnt occur , and we didnt learn from our mistakes , we could have been facing a catastrophic disaster , much worse than the one experienced, in the future . That is balancing what ifs and looking at different possibilities that could have taken place .

Deception On The Forefront of The Gulf The BP disaster is just one example of what can happen when deception

and lies take place . The world we live in is very fragile and finite. We need to be very carful with how we care for it. We need to stop the deception and the lies . If we let this type of thing happen on a regular basis there can be many more problems that occur , water can become contaminated , food could become tainted , and a lot of people could get sick and possibly die . The point is , that we need to be more careful in the drilling of oil and should take more precaution in doing so. We cant change the past , but we can improve ourselves and our situations for a brighter future .

Deception On The Forefront of The Gulf

Bibliography BBC . (2010, October 29). Retrieved February 18, 2011, from BP oil disaster: Prespill tests 'showed cement flaw': www.bbc.co.uk DeVito, J. A. (2011). Interpersonal Messages: Communication and Relationship Skills. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill (2010). (2011, February 2). Retrieved February 19, 2011, from The New York Times: www.nytimes.com Key, J. (2010, August 12). USA Today. Retrieved February 23, 2011, from For BP, halfhearted gestures won't work: www.usatoday.com