You are heartbroken, and? Have you taken centre stage to address the issue? Your Administration took 38 days for an administrative solution which is absolutely unacceptable to any clear thinking human being!
(Guardian UK) - BP has failed to stop the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico using so-called top kill and junk shot techniques, prompting an exasperated response from Barack Obama.
After three days of pumping drilling mud over the leak and an attempt to plug the flow by blasting tyres, golf balls and other debris at it, BP admitted defeat last night. In its latest attempt to contain the worst oil spill in US history, it is to launch a four- to seven-day operation that will involve more oil leaking into the Gulf even if it works.
Obama described the setback as "enraging" and "heartbreaking", as documents emerged showing that BP engineers were concerned about the safety of the Deepwater Horizon rig months earlier than the company has admitted.
Papers obtained by the New York Times show that issues were raised as far back as last June. The problems involved the well casing and blowout preventer, considered critical pieces in the chain of events that led to the disaster.
On 22 June last year, BP engineers were worried that the casing the company wanted to use might collapse under high pressure. "This would certainly be a worst-case scenario," Mark Hafle, a senior drilling engineer at BP, warned in an internal report. "However, I have seen it happen so know it can occur."
The company went ahead with the casing, but only after getting special permission because it violated safety policies and design standards, the New York Times reported.
Hafle, testifying before a panel in Louisiana on Friday about the cause of the rig disaster, rejected the notion that BP had taken risks. He declined to comment on the leaked report.
Last night BP admitted the best hope of stemming the flow completely could take a further two months, using relief wells. BP's chief operations officer, Doug Suttles, admitted: "We have not been able to stop the flow … This scares everybody, the fact that we can't make this well stop flowing, the fact that we haven't succeeded so far."
He added: "Many of the things we're trying have been done on the surface before, but have never been tried at 5,000ft."
The next approach, which also has never been attempt at this depth, involves robot submarines cutting the leaking pipe, placing a cap over it and then pumping the oil to the surface. "We're confident the job will work but obviously we can't guarantee success," Suttles said. He explained that if the operation succeeded it would contain most, but not all, of the leaking oil.
The spill is the worse than the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster and has dumped up to 40m gallons (150m litres) into the Gulf of Mexico, according to government estimates.
Obama, who is facing mounting criticism about the government's response, showed his frustration last night. "It is as enraging as it is heartbreaking, and we will not relent until this leak is contained, until the waters and shores are cleaned up, and until the people unjustly victimised by this manmade disaster are made whole," he said.
It has been 40 days since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, killing 11 workers, and unleashing an environmental catastrophe. Oil has washed up on a vast stretch of beaches and poisoned wildlife in the ecologically sensitive area.
