In a February 24, 2010 letter, 17 lawmakers asked Ms. Elizabeth Bimbaum, Director Minerals Management Service, to investigate BPs Atlantis platform in the Gulf of Mexico. This letter should have tipped off the government that there are some serious issues with BPs procedures.
Here is part of the letter:
In recent months, we have heard disturbing reports regarding British Petroleum’s (BP) Atlantis platform in the Gulf of Mexico. This platform, the largest oil and natural gas platform in the world, may be operating without crucial engineering documents, which, if absent, would increase
the risk of a catastrophic accident that would threaten not only the workers on the platform, but also the Gulf of Mexico and the communities who depend on the resources it provides.
In March 2009, a whistleblower notified the Minerals Management Service (MMS) that he believed BP did not have required engineer-approved drawings for BP Atlantis’s subsea components. Industry standards and federal regulations require the company to have these documents before any platform can start production. These include “as-built” drawings, which are essentially an operator’s guide to how the platform components work from start up to shut
down and are critical for operators to have at their disposal.
You can read the rest of the letter at:
http://motherjones.com/files/Congres...er_re_BP-1.pdf