'Grave scenario' for oil along coast

[spanone]

VENICE, La. - Ahead of President Barack Obama's visit Sunday to monitor efforts to battle the massive Gulf Coast oil leak, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told NBC that the potential environmental outlook is "a very grave scenario."

"A lot of oil could spread" since stopping the three leaks from the well that blew up and then sank nearly two weeks ago could take three months, he told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.

BP, which operates the well, was more optimistic, telling NBC's "TODAY" show on Sunday that a temporary fix — essentially a dome that would be placed over the leaks until they can be cut off — was nearly ready to be deployed.

The dome would have piping to send the spewing crude up to tankers for collection.

"We're forecasting (it) to be complete in eight to ten days," said Doug Suttles, BP's chief for exploration and production.

Obama was due to speak from the coast at midday after touring the area.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36897088/ns/us_news-environment/

[mikelgb]

1. of course all mitigation plans include collection of the oil

right away they announced that fucking "relief" well. Bullshit it is a replacement well. Installed with haste and without regulation in a crisis, textbook Shock Doctrine.

[spanone]

2. doncha love bp's 'optimism' ?

[Texifornia]

3. ????

So they should not collect the spilled oil?

Please tell us how to stop this without a relief well. I would love to know the answer to that.

I really would.

[flamingdem]

4. 8-10 days? I thought they said 2-3 months

well I hope that's kind of true anyway.

[Texifornia]

5. Temporary fix

8-10 days for the giant vacuum cleaner head (so-called "dome"). It has never been tried at these depths and has been designed and fabricated on the fly. Maybe it works, maybe not.

It will take months to drill a relief well which is the only thing that is likely to shut this thing off...and that is a difficult proposition at best.

This thing will probably get much worse before it gets better, and it is already a catastrophe.

[snagglepuss]

6. This is pure PR bullshit from BP which is obviously working given your response.

BP is simply diffusing public anger by offering false promises but what they are saying is bs.

[suffragette]

7. Glad that Salazar is taking it seriously, unlike some others

http://www.sunherald.com/2010/05/01/2146383/taylor-expects-spill-to-break.html

U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor on Saturday said people shouldn’t be so scared about the massive oil spill in the Gulf; he said after flying over it, “it’s not as bad as I thought.”

Taylor flew over the site of the sunken Deepwater Horizon rig Saturday along with Department of Marine Resources Director Bill Walker and Rep. Jo Bonner of Alabama.

He (Taylor) described the spill as a light, rainbow sheen with patches that look like chocolate milk.

Walker said the sheen could collect on beaches and in estuaries, but it will evaporate within a week.
Walker’s plan is to let any sheen that makes its way into the marshes evaporate naturally.
“That’s what we will probably do, is leave it alone and let nature take its course,” he said.

[Ruby the Liberal]

8. Holy tone deaf, batman!

Evaporate? Nature take its course? Can this clown be serious???

[suffragette]

9. All the more stunning that he's the Department of Marine Resources Director

for Mississippi.

[Bluebear]

10. "It looks like chocolate milk" Gene Taylor is a MAJOR IDIOT.

[flamingdem]

11. Is he GOP? Globs of Pollution nt

[Bluebear]

12. No, he is a "Democrat"

Disgraceful.

[misanthrope]

15. To be fair, he's a Southern Democrat...

...which in a great deal of cases is equal to a moderate Republican on a national scale.

Still conservative, nonetheless.

[suffragette]

13. Reminds me of Dixy Lee Ray when she was trying to get super tankers

in Puget Sound and was going on about the oil spill in Santa Barbara not being an ecological disaster and people only being upset because they saw pictures of a few birds coated in oil.

She was not re-elected here.

[no_hypocrisy]

14. When will this be officially an "emergency"?

When the oil reaches the seabeds of Florida? Georgia? South Carolina?

[misanthrope]

16. When it mars the beach in front of expensive homes...

...and takes a bite out of the fattest wallets.