"The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume," he said.
Yeah, yeah, Tony. Most consoling. By the way, the Gulf of Mexico is not an ocean. It is a gulf. Its name gives it away.
Hayward promised that BP would "fix" the disaster, which is on course to eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill as the worst US oil spill in history. "We will fix it. I guarantee it. The only question is we do not know when."
Hayward stressed that BP's efforts to contain the spill had succeeded in dispersing the oil and preventing large amounts reaching the shoreline around the Gulf. But environmentalists are concerned about the unseen damage being done to marine life by the oil which is sinking to the seabed.
Those of us in the vicinity of the leak are pretty anxious to know when the "fix" will be in.
So your job may be on the line. That's tough, especially in these tough economic times. But I have a sneaking suspicion that you won't be reduced to life on the dole.
The failed blowout preventer on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig had a hydraulic leak and a dead battery in one of its control pods, and testing in the hours before an April 20 explosion revealed that pressure in the well was dangerously out of whack, a House committee investigating the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico said Wednesday.
"The more I learn about this accident, the more concerned I become," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, who has cast the explosion and the ongoing oil spill that followed as a cautionary tale of America's dependence on oil and what he characterized as "dangerous" deepwater drilling in particular.
In recent days, the Energy Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations has been combing through documents provided by BP, the oil giant that had been on the verge of announcing a huge find in the deep waters 50 miles off the Louisiana coast, and Transocean Limited, the contractor whose offshore rig blew up three weeks ago, killing 11 workers and opening an undersea gusher that is releasing about 5,000 barrels of crude a day into the Gulf.
The investigation by the subcommittee, of which Rep. Henry Waxman is chairman, obtained more information than the two Senate committees which grilled the CEO's yeaterday. Waxman is one of my heroes in Congress. He's a bulldog. He won't let go.
The finger-pointing blame game amongst the corporations involved continues unabated, but the consequences of the disaster will affect all the companies involved, no matter their efforts to throw the blame off themselves.
According to Waxman, just after midnight the morning of April 20, Halliburton finished cementing the well. Waxman said that James Dupree, the BP senior vice president for the Gulf of Mexico, told the committee staff that a 5 p.m. pressure test, to determine whether any gas was leaking into the well through the cement or casing, had an unsatisfactory result, and a second test also discovered a disturbing imbalance between pressure in the drill pipe and in the kill and choke lines.
Waxman said that while Dupree indicated that the well blew right after the second test, BP lawyers told the committee that additional tests were done and well operations resumed. Two hours later the well blew.
"The investigation will have to tear that apart piece by piece," said Lamar McKay, the president and president of BP America, of the discrepancy in the pressure tests.
Why, why, why wasn't the well shut down when the tests showed unsatisfactory results? Why?
Rep. Charlie Melancon (D), my rep in Congress, is running against Sen. David Vitter for his Senate seat, but he's far behind Vitter in the polls. He needs to wake up to the reality of conditions in the US today. Melancon says:
"We're the United States, and I would have thought if this was going to happen, it would have been in maybe a South African continent or some Third World country that just looked the other way or said, you know, if there's still such a thing -- and I'm sure there is -- kickbacks, that that would have happened there and not here in the United States," Melancon said. "And, of course, having come through Katrina, Rita, Gustav, Ike and now Horizon, it's just, I guess, the anxiety is building on South Louisiana as though there's a bull's eye on us."
Where ya been, Charlie? Asleep? Are you just now noting all is not hunky-dory in our country? Although our decline started before the Cheney/Bush regime, didn't you see the trashing of our institutions and agencies during the 8 years those guys were in charge? You voted their way a good many times, loyal Blue Dog Democrat that you are.
Yesterday afternoon, I listened to and read the transcript of Archbishop Desmond Tutu's latest interview on Public Radio. What a godly and delightful man.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu: There's no question about the reality of evil, of injustice, of suffering, but, you know, at the center of this existence is a heart beating with love. You know, that you and I and all of us are incredible. I mean, we really are remarkable things. That we are, as a matter of fact, made for goodness.
Archbishop Tutu begins the interview with a prayer:
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of thy faithful people and kindle in them the fire of thy love. Send forth thy spirit and they shall be made and thou shalt renew the face of the earth. Amen.
I know the prayer with slight changes in wording from my Roman Catholic elementary and high school days.
Ms. Tippett: Right. You had spiritual companions.
Archbishop Tutu: Yes. They are more than that. I mean, they are people who helped to form me. And then discovering that the Bible could be such dynamite. I subsequently used to say if these white people had intended keeping us under they shouldn't have given us the Bible. Because, whoa, I mean, it's almost as if it is written specifically just for your situation. I mean, the many parts of it that were so germane, so utterly to the point for us …
Ms. Tippett: Can you recall one of those early discoveries as the Bible as dynamite? Some teaching that you suddenly saw as so relevant?
Archbishop Tutu: Well, it's actually right the very first thing. I mean, when you discover that apartheid sought to mislead people into believing that what gave value to human beings was a biological irrelevance, really, skin color or ethnicity, and you saw how the scriptures say it is because we are created in the image of God, that each one of us is a God-carrier. No matter what our circumstances may be, no matter how awful, no matter how deprived you could be, it doesn't take away from you this intrinsic worth. One saw just how significant it was.
Ah yes. The Bible is dynamite, right from the beginning. The creation story is the source, in great part, of my sense of myself as a person of value.
Ms. Tippett: There is a lot of violence in South African society right now, and that violence is connected, as you say, to these 300 years that couldn't possibly be resolved by the Commission.
Archbishop Tutu: Yeah.
Ms. Tippett: I mean, how do you think about what's happening now and that as part of this project?
Archbishop Tutu: I think, I mean, that we have very gravely underestimated the damage that apartheid inflicted on all of us. You know, the damage to our psyches, the damage that has made — I mean, it shocked me. I went to Nigeria when I was working for the World Council of Churches, and I was due to fly to Jos. And so I go to Lagos airport and I get onto the plane and the two pilots in the cockpit are both black. And whee, I just grew inches. You know, it was fantastic because we had been told that blacks can't do this.
Ms. Tippett: Right.
Archbishop Tutu: And we have a smooth takeoff and then we hit the mother and father of turbulence. I mean, it was quite awful, scary. Do you know, I can't believe it but the first thought that came to my mind was, "Hey, there's no white men in that cockpit. Are those blacks going to be able to make it?" And of course, they obviously made it — here I am. But the thing is, I had not known that I was damaged to the extent of thinking that somehow actually what those white people who had kept drumming into us in South Africa about our being inferior, about our being incapable, it had lodged some way in me.
As a result of living many years under the thumb of an oppressive government, even Archbishop Tutu, who seems a model of a whole man, suffers from damage from which he has never fully recovered. But then he goes on to say:
Archbishop Tutu: Well, yeah, but I have to say, you know, if you are devoid of hope then roll over and disappear quietly. Hope says, hey, things can, things will, be better because God has intended for it to be so. You know? At no point will evil and injustice and oppression and all of the negative things have the last word. And, yes, I mean, there's no question about the reality of evil, of injustice, of suffering, but at the center of this existence is a heart beating with love. You know, that you and I and all of us are incredible. I mean, we really are remarkable things that we are, as a matter of fact, made for goodness. And it's not a smart aleck thing to say; it's just a fact. Because all of us, even when we have degenerated, know that the wrong isn't what we should be, isn't what we should be doing. We're fantastic. I mean, we really are amazing.
Archbishop Tutu is fantastic and amazing. I recommend listening to the entire interview or reading the transcript.
H/T to Ann Fontaine at The Lead for the link to the interview.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held hearings on the the explosion of BP's Horizon rig to question the top company executives about what caused the explosion that killed 11 workers and led to the oil leak that no one seems to know how to stop.
At both hearings, BP America President and Chairman Lamar McKay said the failure of the blowout preventers owned by rig operator Transocean had to be considered as a possible cause.
Steven Newman, CEO and president of Transocean Limited, said the blowout preventers "were clearly not the root cause," suggesting they might have been damaged by debris from cement barriers installed by Halliburton just before the accident.
Tim Probert, Halliburton's president of Global Business lines, said the company had followed BP directions, and noted that the drilling contractor "used seawater for the final cement plug," which some industry officials said is unusual.
All three executives emphasized, however, that it is much too early to determine a precise cause.
The following was developed as a mental age assessment by the School of Psychiatry at Harvard University ... Take your time and see if you can read each line aloud without a mistake.
The average person over 40 years of age cannot do it!
1. This is this cat. 2. This is is cat. 3. This is how cat. 4. This is to cat.. 5. This is keep cat. 6. This is an cat. 7. This is old cat. 8..This is fart cat. 9. This is busy cat.. 10. This is for cat. 11. This is forty cat. 12. This is seconds cat.
Now go back and read the third word in each line from the top down and I betcha' you cannot resist passing it on!
Is the gadget for people with mobility problems? I'd be concerned about falling backwards. For the young and the fit, will the vehicle lead to atrophy of the leg and foot muscles?
Civilisation is hooped together, brought Under a rule, under the semblance of peace By manifold illusion; but man's life is thought, And he, despite his terror, cannot cease Ravening through century after century, Ravening, raging, and uprooting that he may come Into the desolation of reality: Egypt and Greece, good-bye, and good-bye, Rome! Hermits upon Mount Meru or Everest, Caverned in night under the drifted snow, Or where that snow and winter's dreadful blast Beat down upon their naked bodies, know That day bring round the night, that before dawn His glory and his monuments are gone.
Last week, BP lowered a four-story custom-designed concrete-and-metal box 5,000 feet into the Gulf of Mexico, where the plan was for it to rest atop the larger of two remaining oil leaks to capture escaping oil and send it via pipe to a drill ship on the water's surface.
But the oil did not flow through pipe properly because a buildup of frozen crystals, called hydrates, blocked the pipe opening where oil would come out after being sucked from the well. BP had planned for such a complication and used a warm solution between the pipes from the drill ship to keep the oil flowing, but it was not enough.
BP plans to use a smaller box to direct the oil from largest of the leaks into a pipe that will lead to a container vessel. Toward the end of next week, the company will also try to plug the well using a "junk shot", which means that BP will shoot trash at high speed into the blowout preventer (which did not prevent a blowout) to try to stop the flow of oil.
Satish Nagarajaiah, a Rice University engineer who works on offshore drilling issues, said he is concerned that the smaller box will not stay in place.
Neither of these methods inspire a great deal of confidence. I have a vision of trash floating in the oily water. Still, I hope, beyond hope, that one of the efforts is successful.
The company also will attempt a "top kill" of the failed blowout preventer that sits atop the wellhead, pumping what BP officials have called "junk," pieces of ground up tire or golf balls, into the valve assembly under very high pressure.
Komsomoloskaya Pravda, the best-selling Russian daily, reports that in Soviet times such leaks were plugged with controlled nuclear blasts underground. The idea is simple, KP writes: “the underground explosion moves the rock, presses on it, and, in essence, squeezes the well’s channel.”
The controlled underground nuclear strikes were used five times to control petrocalamities and failed only once.
The word is that BP is asking for suggestions for ways to stop the gusher, so I presume they're desperate. Pravda is apparently quite serious, but count me out as one who recommends the nuclear method.
