Gulf oil spill: Gusher resumes full force after accident forces BP to
remove cap
'Top hat' damaged by robot vehicle shortly after US interior secretary
had praised device
* Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
*
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 23 June 2010 20.39 BST
An adult American white pelican is rinsed by volunteers An adult
American white pelican is rinsed by volunteers. Photograph: Reuters
The gusher in the Gulf of Mexico returned to full force today after BP
was forced to remove a cap that had been containing some of the oil
spewing out of its ruptured wellhead.
Initial reports suggested a robot vehicle had accidently bumped into
the "top hat" device and damaged one of the vents. Its failure
represented a major setback to efforts to contain the spill, with
underwater video showing crude and gas billowing from the ocean floor
unchecked for the first time in three weeks.
Only minutes earlier, Ken Salazar, the US interior secretary, had told
a congressional committee the top hat device had achieved a new
milestone, collecting 27,900 barrels (4.4m litres) of oil in the
previous 24 hours – still less than half the oil fouling the Gulf each
day.
Salazar was appearing before the committee to introduce the Obama
administration's new head of offshore drilling regulation, Michael
Bromwich, and announce a new "zero tolerance" regime for corrupt or lax
government safety inspectors.
Thad Allen, the coast guard admiral who is leading the administration's
response to the spill, told reporters that workers had detected a
possible gas leak in the line that was running warm water into the
collection device. The waterline is used to prevent the buildup of
hydrate crystals around the collection device.
Initial reports also suggested that the robot vehicle may have
inadvertently shut down one of the vents on the collection device,
raising the pressure within and forcing gas into the warm waterline.
Allen said workers would have to determine whether the device was
compromised by the formation of crystals. If so, workers may have to
run a new pipe before they can begin collecting oil again.
He added that two cleanup workers had been killed, but gave no further
details.
The removal of the top hat underlined the enormous challenges of
containing America's biggest environmental disaster, just as the Obama
administration was hoping to persuade the public it was adopting new
safety protocols that would ensure such a spill never happened again.
In his public debut, Bromwich, the new head of a reconfigured agency
overseeing offshore oil and gas industry, told the Senate
appropriations subcommittee he was launching an investigative unit to
root out corrupt government regulators. The Bureau of Ocean Energy
Management is to replace the Minerals Management Service (MMS), which
has been accused of being in the pocket of the oil industry.
Bromwich promised that would change under the new agency, which would
see the launch of a FBI-style team of investigators who would conduct
internal investigations of the associations between government
regulators and industry.
"There will be little tolerance for corruption and cosiness," he said.
"There will be zero tolerance for whatever was tolerated in the past."
The former prosecutor said his team would encourage whistleblowers and
would act quickly to root out corruption or complacency among agency
officials or the companies that were supposed to regulate.
Even before the Deepwater Horizon rig went down, the MMS was notorious
for cocaine-fuelled sex romps between government officials and oil
industry executives. In the Gulf, government inspectors were plied with
free football tickets or offered jobs by the very same companies they
were supposed to monitor.
But Salazar also argued that the MMS had never had the resources it
needed to manage Big Oil. He told senators he needs more inspectors to
have proper oversight of offshore drilling safety. At present, the
agency has 62 inspectors who are supposed to visit 4,000 production
wells.
Salazar, in his initial budget request, asked for six more inspectors.
Today, he was urging senators to help fund an expanded inspection
regime of 600 staff.
Senators delivered a withering review of the agency's performance,
saying it had failed to vet BP's safety procedures, intervene in the
dispute between BP and Transocean engineers on board the doomed
Deepwater Horizon rig on whether to stop drilling, or even have an
adequate inspection programme.
"The last 64 days have clearly demonstrated the technology in use for
offshore drilling does not have the capacity to stop oil spills,"
Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who heads the appropriations
subcommittee, said.
"There was a shameful culture of corruption," said Bryan Dorgan, a
Democrat from North Dakota.
Salazar also defended the administration's decision to order a
six-month halt to deepwater drilling. A judge in New Orleans overturned
the ban yesterday. Salazar said the administration would go back to
court to seek a more limited ban.
"The moratorium that we put into place was the right thing to do," he
said.^E
Fury in India over US 'double standards'
Indians have reacted with anger to the tough stance taken by Barack
Obama against BP. Many accuse the US of double standards over
industrial accidents after the failure to convict Americans involved in
the 1984 toxic gas disaster in Bhopal. The anger goes beyond that of
campaigners or activists, with some of India's best-known writers and
journalists weighing in.
"It looks like Indian children's lives are cheaper than [those of]
fish," said Chetan Bhagat, the country's best-selling writer. "Obama
should bang his fist on the table. If he can do that for fish, how
about our kids? Or are they only Indians?"
Related Link:
Watch Deepwater One Live Video Feed From the Gulf Oil Spill
http://www3.telus.net/thegoodnews/deepwater-live.htm