
Facebook left 6,500 gallons of drilling fluid off the coast of Oregon - guptaneil
https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/17/21372395/facebook-drilling-fluid-equipment-submarine-cable-oregon-coast
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dpiers
6,500 gallons of drilling fluid sounds much scarier than a 9.54ft cubic
container's worth of water and clay.

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s09dfhks
Anything to get the clicks

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weatherman2
The drilling mud used to lubricate the equipment was a clay called bentonite
with small amounts of a polymer additive, according to Facebook. It’s
biodegradable and nontoxic, the company tells The Verge. Bentonite on its own
isn’t usually bad for the environment, John Dilles, another professor of
geology at Oregon State, tells The Verge in an email. It’s sometimes used to
absorb toxic metal at sites that need to be cleaned up or where waste needs to
be contained, he says.

In the case of an accidental release, however, the drilling fluid components
used at the site should be prevented from “entering sewers, waterways, or low
areas,” according to safety data sheets published by the state. Facebook opted
to leave 6,500 gallons of mud in place to “minimize the risk of leaks,” it
wrote.

Facebook also left behind a drill tip, tools, and 1,100 feet of pipe. It’s not
uncommon for companies to leave behind pieces of broken equipment when digging
it up is more costly or could cause even more destruction. There’s a risk of
losing more equipment when working through hard rock, according to Goldfinger.

Not much to discuss here.

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duxup
At first I thought "Facebook doesn't lay cable do they?" but to my surprise:

>Facebook subsidiary Edge Cable Holdings

How common is it when you want to build out a cable like this, you have a
subsidiary of your own do it?

I would think you could just contract that out...

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beenBoutIT
If they'd contracted it out they wouldn't be in this mess. A cable laying
company leaving drilling fluid out doesn't make headlines unless it's named
Facebook.

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duxup
Also I presume most cable companies know the rules / try to follow them and
etc. Maybe, maybe not, but at least you'd be somewhat insulted from that.

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klmadfejno
That's... not that much, is it? I'm trying to find a good mental model for
water volume. Best I got is an olympic pool contains 500,000 gallons. So,
around 1% of an olympic pool.

Or around 160 oil barrels worth.

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jtsiskin
A 9.5 foot cube

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Ckfu
How come fb is not panalized of environmental disaster or pollution..??

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kd5bjo
There doesn’t appear to be any environmental damage yet, though it’s possible
this incident will produce some in the future. Also, they are being penalized:
they’re being fined for violating their original permit and being required to
rectify the situation, either by removing the offending materials or coming to
some agreement with Oregon to leave it there in exchange for as-yet-
undpecified compensation.

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pacamara619
With environmental pollution there doesn't need to be any actual damage to
sue.

