c*nts.
I hate Zuckerberg.
It's hip to dislike the influential and rich.
c*nts in being c*nts shocker!
Facebook abandons broken drilling equipment under Oregon coast seafloorLynnae Ruttledge was worried when she heard Facebook planned to build a landing spot for an undersea fiber-optic cable near her Oregon Coast home.
Tierra Del Mar, where the 70-year-old retired government worker lives part-time, is a tiny community north of Pacific City with no stoplights and no cell-phone service. The enclave, all zoned residential, consists of about a dozen mostly gravel streets running perpendicular to an idyllic stretch of beach, each lined with single-family homes.
Ruttledge and many of her neighbors worried about heavy equipment on fragile roads built over sand dunes. They worried about noise and vibrations from the drill needed to punch a hole under the seafloor thousands of feet out into the ocean. They worried about threatened bird species, like the snowy plover and marbled murrelet, that could be affected.
Despite their concerns, and a vocal campaign to stop the project, construction began earlier this year.
Then, on April 28, the drilling crew hit an unexpected area of hard rock. The drill bit became lodged and the drill pipe snapped 50 feet below the seafloor. The crew was able to recover some of the equipment, but they left the rest where it lay.
Today, about 1,100 feet of pipe, a drill tip, various other tools and 6,500 gallons of drilling fluid sit under the seafloor just off the central Oregon coast. Facebook has no plans to retrieve the equipment.
Edge Cable Holdings, a Facebook subsidiary responsible for the project, notified the county of the accident on May 5, but it did not explicitly mention the abandoned equipment. That information didn’t emerge until a meeting with state officials June 17, nearly two months after the malfunction, said Ali Hansen, a Department of State Lands spokeswoman.
The delay in notification eliminated any potential options for recovery of the equipment,” Hansen said in an email. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said the company’s new plan is to return in early 2021 to drill a new hole, leaving the lost equipment under the seafloor indefinitely.A Facebook spokeswoman confirmed the drilling equipment remains below the seafloor just off the coast but disputed the timeline of when the state was notified. She said the company was aware the May 5 letter had been passed to state officials by a resident and followed up with a phone call with the Department of State Lands two days later.
She also said the company had performed an environmental assessment and “determined that there is no negative environmental or public health impact from the drill head remaining at the site.”
“While marine retrieval of the remaining equipment and drilling mud may be possible,” she said in an email, “such an effort is not guaranteed to succeed and it is not an environmentally prudent option.”On Thursday, the Department of State Lands notified the company that it was in default of its permits because it was using the area to “store” the abandoned equipment, which was unauthorized. The agency told Facebook it had 30 days to reach an agreement with the state on damages to be paid for violating the permit and amend the agreement to address any “current and future risks and liabilities that may arise from the abandoned” equipment.
The default also gave Facebook 180 days to “remove the abandoned pipe, equipment, tools and drilling mud in consultation with the (state) and without causing damage to the environment” or apply for a new permit to leave the equipment where it is.The accident and its aftermath, first reported by the Tillamook Headlight Herald, is beyond any initial fear Ruttledge had.
“I actually believed that they would make life miserable during the time they were here, but finish by April and then be gone,” she told The Oregonian/OregonLive. “I could never have imagined that their pipe would break and they would abandon it with no plan to remove it from under the sea bed.”
OPPOSITION FROM THE GET-GO
In 2018, Facebook bought an undeveloped beachfront lot from former University of Oregon quarterback Joey Harrington for $495,000. Soon after, the company submitted applications to Tillamook County and the state to use that residential-zoned property as the eastern terminus for one of its trans-oceanic fiber-optic cables, which would stretch more than 8,500 miles from Japan and the Philippines to the west coast of North America.
The company planned to bore a hole 3,000 feet out to sea, where it would connect with the cable from Asia. The project would start in the lot, which is under Tillamook County’s jurisdiction, run under the beach, which is managed by the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, and end in the waters offshore, territory regulated by the Department of State Lands and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, all agencies included in the permitting process.Tierra Del Mar residents were immediately opposed. Of the nearly 60 comments submitted, every one recommended denying the permit outright or seeking an alternative location.
State Rep. David Gomberg, who represents the area, at the time said residents’ apprehension was misplaced.
“Oregon and particularly rural Oregon, wants that infrastructure. Whether it be broadband or fiber optic, we are dependent on it for our livability,” he said. “I sat down with the neighbors early and asked them what they wanted from Facebook. Did they want their roads paved? Or better internet service? Or to turn the lots into a park? Their position was they didn’t want Facebook at all.”
Nonetheless, the county board of commissioners gave the green light. Construction began in late January and crews began drilling in early March.
Immediately, residents’ concerns were confirmed. Shaking from the drill rattled homes close to the site, and one neighbor’s water main broke, after which drilling stopped while “a collaborative solution” was reached, according to a letter from an attorney representing Facebook. Another neighbor complained of high noise levels, and some sound baffling was added.
Given the scope of the project, things could have been worse, Ruttledge said.
“Was it ever as noisy as we thought? No,” she said. “Was it ugly? Absolutely.”
Then, on April 28, just days from completion, the drill pipe snapped about 500 feet from its endpoint.
“No damage to the environment or injury to any workers occurs, but emergency measures are required to determine the cause, locate the break, remove damaged rods between the entry point and the break point, secure the bore hole and HDD drill rig and contact state and federal officials,” a lawyer wrote to county planners May 5.
The letter also noted all activity was halted April 30, as required by the permits, and the company would prefer to remove equipment from the lot and return in January 2021 to complete the job. The Facebook spokeswoman said to work past April 30 would require a new permit, which could take months.
The letter did not explicitly mention the equipment left on the seafloor and Hansen, with the Department of State Lands, said the state only found out about the abandoned equipment in a meeting with the company on June 17, five weeks after the accident.
A CALL TO CANCEL PERMITS
In 2016, Gov. Kate Brown wrote a letter encouraging attendees at a telecommunications conference to think of Oregon as a landing site for trans-Pacific undersea cables.
“We invite and encourage you to consider Oregon as your future site to come ashore on the west coast of North America, and as an excellent location for the placement of related on-shore operations,” Brown wrote.
Edge Cable Holdings paid the standard $5,000 application fee for the Tierra Del Mar project, plus an additional $300,000 to remove a clause in the agreement that could have resulted in future fees.But since the project has gone awry, Gomberg, the state representative who tried to broker peace between Facebook and residents before the project, has soured on the social media giant’s presence.
“I have come to the conclusion that (the residents) were absolutely right,” he said. “Facebook has been an unfriendly neighbor. These folks now have to be worried about what washes up on their beach for generations.”
One of the biggest problems with the project, and others like it, is that the permits don’t account for such situations, said Cameron La Follette, Oregon Coast Alliance executive director.
Oregon’s rules on laying fiber-optic cable on the coast are lax, La Follette said, and don’t hold companies financially responsible for accidents and include only generic language about environmental concerns.
“This accident, which resulted in Facebook/Edge Cable abandoning equipment and at least 6,500 gallons of bore gel under the seafloor, occurred due to corporate incompetence, combined with negligence and extreme irresponsibility about Oregon’s priceless marine natural resources,” La Follette said in an email.While the permit does include mitigation plans for an “inadvertent release” of drilling fluid, none has yet spilled. The components “are biodegradable and environmentally neutral,” Hansen said, adding that “(the state) is requiring Edge Cable to provide an analysis of potential health, safety, and environmental impacts due to the presence of the equipment.”
Both La Follette and Ruttledge want the permits revoked, stiff fines levied and all equipment responsibly removed.
Brown spokesman Charles Boyle said the state expects “transparency and timely notification” from companies like Facebook and that Brown is considering whether additional regulations are necessary. The Department of State Lands was “exploring what opportunities exist to remedy this situation,” he said.
“When the drill equipment was removed from the bore hole without notice or discussion, the opportunity to fully evaluate recovery options was lost,” Hansen said. “We are working with the Department of Justice to develop new language regarding timely notification and equipment salvage.”
The Facebook spokeswoman maintained the company has been transparent throughout the project.
If the company fails to comply with the 30- and 180-day deadlines in the default notice, the state could terminate its agreement with Facebook, issue fines or initiate legal action.
Meanwhile, Facebook’s assurances that the equipment and drilling fluid pose no environmental hazard are of little comfort to Ruttledge.
“We don’t trust them,” she said. “Someone has come in and left junk in our backyard, and they feel no remorse.
“They are not saying, ‘We’re sorry.’ There is no accountability.”
https://www.oregonlive.com/environment/2020/08/facebook-abandons-broken-drilling-equipment-under-oregon-coast-seafloor.html?outputType=amp