November 23, 2010

BP’s Atlantis Still Operating, Despite Warnings

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Nine months after members of Congress requested a thorough investigation of BP’s other major Gulf project, the Atlantis, lawmakers are still waiting for that report. The results of the investiation are now six months late, and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement says they’ll have to wait a little while longer. 

We’ve been covring the Atlantis for several months now. A whistle-blowing former contractor on the Atlantis first raised concerns that the platform is missing documents crucial to safe operation in 2009, and members of Congress asked the Department of Interior to investigate back in February, several months before the Gulf spill. But the Interior Department division charged with overseeing offshore drilling, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement, has now pushed back the release of their report several times. It is now six months overdue. In the meantime, documents released in the recent months have provided still more evidence that the platform was not in compliance with federal laws. Today, The Hill reports that the investigation is still underway.

In a Nov. 3 letter to Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who has been dogging this issue, BOEMRE head Michael Bromwich said that while the agency has made “significant progress,” the report has been delayed indefinitely as “new information came to light” while they were finalizing it. “It is critical that this investigation be thorough and comprehensive,” Bromwich continued, without giving any specifics about what BOEMRE uncovered.

Despite the now multiple complaints an ongoing investigation, the platform continues to operate—and is doing so in deeper waters and producing more than triple the amount of oil that spilled from the Horizon site each day.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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