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Item #: SCP-5143
Object Class: Unnecessary
Special Containment Procedures: Due to potential strain on Foundation budget, as well as the fact that SCP-5143 maintains a mean worker mortality rate below the average for offshore oil operations,1 active containment has been deemed unnecessary. At least two Foundation operatives possessing offshore oil and gas industry experience are to remain in the legal employ of Seaway Communications Petroleum LLC as engineers servicing SCP-5143 at all times. Assigned agents are to submit bimonthly performance reports to the Department of Finances.
Description: SCP-5143 is the fourth-generation semi-submersible offshore oil platform Lusca IV, located within the southernmost part of the Blake-Bahama Basin.2 According to documentation provided by its original constructor, Subsea 6 S.A., SCP-5143 has a maximal water depth of approximately 1500 meters, a maximal drilling depth of 7600 meters, and possesses living quarters capable of housing up to 146 personnel simultaneously. Although it was never fitted with dynamic positioning systems, SCP-5143 has maintained its location without assistance for the full duration of its operational tenure. In addition, despite a lack of modernized equipment, the object has had no documented reports of machinery-related accidents since it was built in 1998.
SCP-5143 is partially organic, with its lower levels containing significant amounts of living tissue resembling abscesses or cysts protruding from its internal structure. These have been documented to affect various inorganic materials, including plastic and metal as well as junction boxes and cabling. The prevalence of matter converted to organic material increases within infrequently accessed maintenance corridors.
SCP-5143 also displays extensive flooding, albeit present exclusively within its structural columns and ballast pontoons. This has not been found to affect buoyancy or possess any impact on expected non-anomalous function and operation of the object. Liquid samples collected within these flooded areas possess a pH of approximately 2.5 and are comprised primarily of HCl and various digestive enzymes commonly encountered in gastric acid.
Despite the object's relatively low environmental pollution rate when compared to similar non-anomalous structures, the waters within a radius of approximately two to three nautical miles around SCP-5143 display unusually low populations of local marine wildlife.

Related SCiPNET communications, archived on request of Foundation Ethics Committee representative Benjamin Vasylchuk, as follows:

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| To: pics.53etis|ikswoktur.s.rj#pics.53etis|ikswoktur.s.rj
| From: pics.53etis|sllew.r.rid#pics.53etis|sllew.r.rid
| Subject: RE: SCP-5143 containment procedures?

On Wed, July 26, 2006 at 3:56 PM <pics.53etis|ikswoktur.s.rj#pics.53etis|ikswoktur.s.rj> wrote:
> […] So we're just letting this thing eat people and turn them into oil?
I'm going to be honest with you here, Simon- I appreciate your dedication to protocol, but it seems I need to reiterate: money doesn't grow on trees. Turns out oil doesn't grow on trees either, and as far as I'm aware we've yet to find a way to power site generators without it, to use one example of many. And to precede your complaints about using oil at all- this thing seems to have a near-perfect fuel conversion rate, and I'd love to hear your ideas for something more environmentally friendly than that. Anyway, next time you get the idea of recommending we shut down vital Foundation infrastructure, I'd recommend taking a moment to look at last quarter's spending and consider where your grant funding is coming from.
To address your other concerns- I don't care what Agent Simmons said on tape, if the thing had a compulsory effect he wouldn't have come back at all. Nobody's forcing the workers to go and get lost down there, so I'd appreciate it if you kept that little theory to yourself. That said, if ethics is what you're concerned about, feel free to have Foundation employees man the whole crew instead. I'll even sign off on it if you want.
Have the finalized containment procedures on my desk by Monday.
Best,
Wells
Site-35 Director Robert Wells

Footnotes
1. Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, 2006.
2. Also known as the Blake Basin, the Blake-Bahama Basin is an area of the Atlantic Ocean located along the east coast of the United States, possessing a depth exceeding 5400 meters. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 1997.

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