The BP oil spill response is so jacked up, they are seeking the advice of a dead man.
As part of its 2009 disaster response plan, BP lists biologist and former Florida Atlantic University and University of Miami professor Peter Lutz as the expert it would call on to monitor any impact crude oil was having on sea life.
Lutz sounds like a good pick and his expertise would be critical right now if only he hadn't died five years ago. Lutz died of pancreatic cancer at age 65.
We're assuming BP officials didn't attend the funeral. It's a shame dead men don't tweet.
"I think he would have been fairly horrified and annoyed to be in the BP plan when he probably was never consulted," marine biologist Sarah Milton told the Sun-Sentinel. "And then he would have been amused."
Residents along the Gulf Coast and in Florida have considered BP's response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster as laughable, also. The oil giant botched its first attempt to cap the gushing underwater pipeline and has had very sketchy predictions on how much impact the spewing oil was having on ocean life.
That's where Lutz would have come in - again, if he weren't six-feet under.
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Other errors in the 2009 disaster management plan included the company having a less than 5th grader's knowledge of ocean life in the Gulf. BP listed walruses, sea otters, sea lions and seals, as the area's "sensitive biological resources."
The names and phone numbers of several Texas A&M University marine life specialists are wrong. So are the numbers for marine mammal stranding network offices in Louisiana and Florida that are no longer in service.
At the bottom of the sea, the containment cap on the leaking well is capturing 630,000 gallons a day and pumping it to a ship at
the surface, and the amount could nearly double by next week to roughly 1.17 million gallons, the Coast Guard has said.
The government has estimated 600,000 to 1.2 million gallons are leaking per day, but a scientist on a task force studying the flow said the actual rate may be between 798,000 gallons and 1.8 million.
Lutz is probably turning over in his grave.
