The environmental catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico caused by the BP oil spill is now officially at cataclysmic proportions.
In April of this year, BP’s (British Petroleum) Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded, killing 11 people, dumping between 18 to 40 million gallons into the Gulf, and becoming the worst spill in U.S. history, exceeding even the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989 off the Alaska coast. At the time, many from leading environmentalists to the U.S. Government believed BP would get the situation quickly under control. But after weeks of attempting to stop the constant flow of leaking oil, BP attempted a very promising technique called “Top Kill” which was supposed to pump gallons of heavy drilling mud into a crippled well 5,000 feet underwater, then cap it off with a layer of cement. With breaths held and fingers crossed, everyone hoped against hope that the near last-ditch effort would work. On Saturday, BP announced it did not!
The top kill began Wednesday, and “to date it hasn’t yet stopped the flow,” BP PLC chief operating officer Doug Suttles told reporters in a hastily scheduled press conference. “What I don’t know is whether it ultimately will or not.” Now it appears BP’s only remaining option is to cut off the damaged riser from which the oil is leaking and cap it with a containment valve that’s already resting on the seafloor. BP is already preparing for that operation, Suttles said.
The BP oil catastrophe has ruined the lives of those who rely on the Gulf for their livelihood, including the fishing and tourism industries. And it’s only getting worse. Natural coral reefs are dead. Rotting carcass’s of dead sea life have washed up on shore among the thick sludge. And BP is under fire for staging a mock clean-up before President Obama toured the area last Friday, so as to “appear” like they were cleaning damaged shoreline when in fact they were not.
No one, not even BP knows if stopping the leak will work. Even worse, no one knows what will happen next should all efforts fail and oil continues to spew into the Gulf for many months to come (some experts are predicting it could continue leaking through August). What we do know is that even if the leak were halted today, the clean up of the Gulf would take YEARS to complete, which is awful news for anyone relying on its existence for their way of life. And if the leak is never halted? The Gulf of Mexico as we know it, may cease to exist.
The fact that men and women have lost their lives as a result of what appears to me to be BP's depraved indifference in the name of chasing $$$ (see documents now emerging showing BP shortcuts and expressed concerns about this rig long BEFORE the disaster) leads me to the conclusion that some people should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law and sent straight to JAIL if found guilty. BP should also be slapped with a HUGE fine and have NO LIMIT on its monetary liabilities. After a very poor initial response it's important for the Obama administration to send a strong message! Speaking of the President: I'm NOT at all pleased with his initial approach on handling this monsterous man-made calamity. In the world of politics_and the lives of REAL people directly affected and all over this nation_perception IS reality. "Effective leadership" ain't just a phrase. Sometimes the Prez. is too "cool" for his own good and this time he may end up paying a bit of a political price for it.
Follow-Up: Thurs. 6/17/10Andrew Sullivan (Daily Dish) take on Obama's competence in the face of the media and partisan critics on both sides. Excerpt: “Getting Sh*t Done”What are the odds that Obama's huge success in getting BP to pledge a cool $20 billion to recompense the "small people" in the Gulf will get the same attention as his allegedly dismal speech on Tuesday night? If you take Memeorandum as an indicator, it really is no contest. The speech is still being dissected by language experts, but the $20 billion that is the front page news in the NYT today? Barely anywhere on the blogs. This is just a glimpse into the distortion inherent in our current political and media culture. It's way easier to comment on a speech – his hands were moving too much! – than to note the truly substantive victory, apparently personally nailed down by Obama, in the White House yesterday. If leftwing populism in America were anything like as potent as right-wing populism – Matt Bai has a superb analysis of this in the NYT today – there would be cheering in the streets. But there's nada, but more leftist utopianism and outrage on MSNBC. And since there's no end to this spill without relief wells, this is about as much as Obama can do, short of monitoring clean-up efforts, or rather ongoing management of the ecological nightmare of an unstopped and unstoppable wound in the ocean floor.
Daily Dish Commenter says “Amen” to Sullivan:“Bless their hearts, many of my closest friends are hardcore lefties (and — dare I say it? — former humanities majors, *sigh*), and I love them with all my heart, but omg, they are getting on my last nerve. I'm an old yellow dog Democrat, like my daddy and his daddy before him, and God knows I don't like watching the Gulf of Mexico fill up with crude oil any more than they do, but they need to (a) grow up and stop living out of the emotional, lizard part of their brain all of the time, and (b) stop w HuffPo 24/7. They all huff and puff about Fox News, but nobody seems to get that MSNBC and HuffPo make their money by scaring people and stirring them up every bit as much. For God's sake, get a hobby! Go for a walk! If they're so upset about animals, go volunteer to work at their local wildlife rescue!”HAH. I say "AMEN" and pass the biscuits_lol. As a Conservative Democrat, I had no choice but to become a registered Independent because the Dems seem to wallow in a chronic state of MELODRAMA and MISERY. Quite frankly, most of them seem to love CRYING and WHINING so much they wouldn’t recognize “Sh*t Getting Done” IF it rose up and slapped them in the face! I’ll take the President, Pelosi, H. Clinton and 2 or 3 other smart and competent Dems over the rest of the Party and “friends” (HuffPost, MSNBC, Dailykos) ANY. DAY.