This is the way technical professionals speak. The most telling fact is that they attempted a test burn 7 days after the spill began, and it was stated that by then the winds had shifted so that the smoke plume would go towards shore.. but honesly.. Oil Plume or Smoke Plume.. which would you pick?
This is as definitive as a guy like this is going to be. It is backed up by another post here where the first day NOAA is already attempting to respond, but nothing happened for more than a week. Why?
Since the pipe is currently still leaking at least 30,000 barrels a day, starting a controlled burn on Wednesday rather than Thursday isn’t going to make much of a difference. You’d have to stop the flow 5000 ft down first.
BP swore in their documents last July that such a blowout on the Deepwater Horizon was nearly impossible, and that if one did occur, that they were well-equipped to handle it promptly with no major problems.
The Coast Guard was sent in the day after the u=initial explosion, which was Apr 20. But BP was claiming that there was apparently no leakage atthe time!
On the 22nd, “Worst case scenario, there is a potential environmental threat,” said the Coast Guard spokeswoman Katherine McNamara. That was based on the amount that BP had been pumping (8K barrels/day and the 70K barrels of fuel oil the rig was carrying when it sank. The Coast Guard was basing its estimation on what BP was telling everyone.
On the 24th, the Coast Guard announced that the drill site had apparently been leaking since the explosion. BP said the leak was estimated at 1000 barrels per day, and they were going to use underwater robots to fix the problem.
Even as late as the 26th, BP stated in a press release that NOAA had verified that the slick was “97% sheen” and that they were confident that they had it under control!
Finally, on the 27th, BP admits thatthe roboits couldn’t do the job, and the Coast Guard begins the containment booms/fir approach.
It wasn’t until the 28th that Coast Guard estimated that the leak was 5K barrels a day (still far less than what is actually being lost). But BP wouldn’t even acknowledge that figure til the next day!
Now, it’s one thing to hate Obama and all that he does. But let’s not let a dislike for the Administration blind us to the fact that BP has lied and dissemble about the true nature of this calamity from the get-go. How would you have responded if the Obama administration had gone in and taken over the rig, seized control of the site from BP 5 or 6 days ago, before the company itself even admitted they had a problem? That would be attacked as tyrannical seizing of private enterprise, or playing “Daddy Gubmint Knows Best.”
Apparently BP, the big experts, have no back-up plan to fix this. This literally don’t know what to do! This crude is going to keep pumping out of their broken well until it destroys the economy of the Gulf States.
A terrorist attack could never do as much damage as this debacle has. Our economy is already teetering, and now this?
As far as I am concerned, looking at the time-line evidence, matching both the government’s and BP’s response, makes it plain: BP bears the primary responsibility for this monumental catastrophe.
The only way that the government COULD have acted faster was if they’d *assumed BP was lying from the outset as to the severity of the blowout.* Now, of course, we know that they WERE lying.