A whistleblower who has a standing lawsuit against BP has argued this week that the company's Atlantis Project, located 150 miles south of New Orleans in the Gulf of Mexico, faces "present and imminent danger."

The whistleblower, Kenneth Abbott, is a former BP contractor on the Atlantis. His lawsuit says that BP failed to keep required records of the safety systems for the Atlantis.

Back in 2010, Food & Water Watch, which joined Abbott's lawsuit, warned that the massive Deepwater Horizon oil disaster foreshadowed another Gulf of Mexico disaster caused by BP's Atlantis platform. At that time, Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Watch, said, “We have evidence that Atlantis is unsafe and is in danger of creating an even worse spill than the one caused by the Deepwater Horizon explosion.”

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The Times-Picayune: BP Atlantis whistleblower alleges imminent safety threat for first time

A whistleblower is alleging for the first time in a yearslong lawsuit against BP that its massive Atlantis oil platform operation off the Louisiana coast faces present and imminent danger. Kenneth Abbott first complained in 2009 that BP had failed to keep required records of the design of pressure-relief systems and other safety mechanisms onboard the Atlantis. [...] [T]he U.S. government joined in some of his claims when an independent reviewer justified many of Abbott's complaints. But BP, and later the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, determined that the lack of safety records did not pose any imminent threat. Abbott's latest filing in the Houston court this week argues otherwise. [...] [T]he Bureau of Ocean Energy Management released a report in March 2011 that declared the Atlantis rig safe, in spite of its failure to maintain proper records on board.

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Food & Water Watch: Deepwater Horizon Accident Foreshadows a Potential Disaster Waiting to Happen in the Gulf