Giles Whittell
The Times [UK]
4 May 2010
The White House faced claims last night that the Gulf Coast oil spill could have been contained and kept far from land within days of the Deepwater Horizon explosion if oil from the gushing wellhead had been burnt off in line with a plan drafted by the US Government for precisely this sort of disaster.
The plan requires the immediate deployment of specialised “fire booms” capable of burning 95 per cent of a slick— but not one boom was available on the Gulf Coast at the time of the blast, according to a supplier who eventually provided one eight days later.
“The whole reason the plan was created was so that we could pull the trigger right away,” Ron Gourget, a former federal oil spill response co-ordinator and one of those who drafted the document, said yesterday…
…The race to cap the well and contain a spill the size of Puerto Rico continued against a background of fingerpointing by the US Government and BP. Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, repeated what is becoming the Administration’s favourite metaphor, saying the Government would “keep a boot to the throat” of BP to make sure it fulfills its responsibility to lead and pay for the clean-up…
…A single fire boom of the kind required by the “In-Situ Burn” plan drafted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for Gulf Coast spills can burn up to 75,000 gallons of oil an hour – roughly a third of the estimated daily leakage from the Deepwater Horizon site.
“They said this was the tool of last resort,” Jeff Bohleber, a supplier of the booms, said. “No, this is absolutely the asset of first use. Get in there and start burning the oil before the spill gets out of hand.” …
The entire article is at the Times.
UPDATE: Jim Hoft writes, Despite Federal Plan Officials Failed to Stock Fire Booms to Contain Oil Slick
