They say that they have stopped the flow of oil from the Deepwater Horizon well. But they won’t know if it will hold up for 48 hours. They have to keep the upward pressure down to a level where they can successfully put a cement plug in to permanently cap the well. So, we’re not out of the woods yet, but there is a decent chance that no more oil will leak into the Gulf of Mexico. If so, then we can turn all our attention to trying to clean up the epic mess this catastrophe created.
Update [2010-5-28 16:53:51 by BooMan]: Never mind. The nightmare continues.
I guess some indeterminate area, somewhere along the coast, is going to be affected. I’m sure someone somewhere is looking into it.
But good news! Per BP, with the well capped the oil will be cleaned up in a mere two weeks and the rest is just some insignificant sheen that nature will take care of in a few years.
From Reuters, dateline Fri May 28, 2010 1:54pm EDT:
FWIW, I think that pretty much fits with what theoildrum.com guys have been saying.
I pray, pray that it’ll work.
Cleaning up the mess will be a hell of a job. And let’s not forget the administrative mess i.e. MMS. I really hope many of those corporate-friendly heads will roll.
Talking about administrative messes, I have to say I’m very concerned about some other potential ticking-time bombs withing the regulatory agencies. I HOPE the WH is being SMART enough to lauch an internal review of other regulatory agencies. Nuclear energy comes to mind. And FDA.
They have to be incisive and tough. And they have to protect whistle-blowers.
MMS is being closed down.
There will be three agencies doing the MMS jobs.
Fuck BP:
fuck them. fucking assholes. Did you see that pig Hayward today, finally admitting it’s a catastrophe after weeks of pretending “it’s just a moderate, tiny little leak”?
very good news, so hope that it holds. Now time to deal with the cleanup and criminals who enabled this.
I am hoping and hoping this will work. The guys at theoildrum.com were not optimistic about how it’s going, and that site’s not operational at the moment.
Anyway, I’m hoping it will work and terrified it might not.
Many people have wondered, very much including myself, what would you have done better than President Obama. What occurs to me reading the “things going to hell” article is that the administration let the information flow be managed by others instead of taking the lead and telling people more about the technical facts of the gusher.
How much wreckage is left and who is going to try what are things I want to see the Press Secretary explaining to people.
Also, you damn well know the navy can get down there. Why have there been no images of the wreckage? Those could have been provided by the administration.
What can be done going forward is to have a plan for when, not if, there is a hurricane in the gulf in 1-4 months. Start practicing, get the people involved. No one knows those coastlines better than the locals. Start training them (and then employ them!!) to clean up the Gulf that is their home and livelihood, and they will thank you forever.