The effort to stanch the vast oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was mired by setbacks on Monday as state and federal officials feuded with BP over its failure to meet deadlines and its refusal to stop spraying a chemical dispersant.
The oil company had indicated that it could stem the flow of oil on Tuesday by trying a procedure known as a top kill, in which heavy fluid would be pumped into the well. But on Monday morning the company’s chief operating officer said the procedure would be delayed until Wednesday. At the same time, BP was locked in a tense standoff with the Environmental Protection Agency, which had ordered the company to stop using a chemical dispersant called Corexit by Sunday. But BP continued spraying the chemical on Monday despite the E.P.A.’s demand that it use a less toxic dispersant to break up the oil. The company told the agency that no better alternative was available.
At a news conference Monday in Louisiana, state and federal officials continued to hammer BP over its response to the spill.
“BP in my mind no longer stands for British Petroleum — it stands for Beyond Patience,” said Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate. “People have been waiting 34 days for British Petroleum to cap this well and stop the damage that’s happening across the Gulf of Mexico.”
“What we need to tell BP,” he added, “is excuses don’t count anymore. You caused this mess, now stop the damage and clean up the mess. It’s your responsibility.”
Mr. Durbin was joined by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who were sent to the region Monday by President Obama in response to increasing criticism that the White House was not acting aggressively enough on the spill.
“BP is the responsible party, but we need the federal government to make sure they’re held accountable,” Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, a Republican, said Monday.
Mr. Salazar insisted that the federal government was not “sitting on the sidelines and letting BP do what BP wants to do.” He pointed out that the government had deployed more than 1,000 vessels to the region and more than 20,000 workers, burned oil off the surface of the Gulf and deployed miles of protective boom to protect and clean up the shorelines.
“The federal government has mounted the largest response to fight this oil in all of the history of this country,” Mr. Salazar said. Speaking of BP, he reiterated the phrase that the government would “keep our boot on their neck until the job gets done.”
Ms. Napolitano said the government had formed a group of “the best scientists available within the federal government” to calculate new estimates of how much oil has been released into the Gulf, suggesting that the government was not satisfied with BP’s estimates, which have attracted widespread criticism as too low. The group is expected to have its assessment ready by early next week.
Seeking to reassure all those whose livelihoods had been threatened by the spill, Sen. Mary Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana, repeated that BP would be held responsible for damages. She also said the state would do a better job of processing claims in the future. “If you made $50,000 last year, and you can’t work this year,” she said, “BP is going to write you a check for $50,000.”
The top-kill method that BP had said it would try on Tuesday is one of several proposed methods of stanching the flow of at least 210,000 gallons of oil a day that has been threatening marine life and sensitive coastal areas in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. BP officials have emphasized that none of the methods have been tried before at the depth of this leak, and the company’s chief operating officer, Doug Suttles, noted the difficulties of working at such depths in explaining why the attempt was being delayed until Wednesday.
Meanwhile, in a letter over the weekend, the oil company defended its use of Corexit and took issue with the methods that the E.P.A. had used to estimate its toxicity.
Last Wednesday, the federal agency ordered BP to propose one or more alternative dispersants to regulators within 24 hours. Then it gave the company 72 hours after that deadline to stop using Corexit and make a switch. Officials and scientists from the E.P.A. and the oil company met Sunday night and were apparently unable to reach a compromise before the deadline passed.
“We are continuing to use Corexit while we look at other alternatives,” Mark Salt, a spokesman for the oil company, said by telephone from Texas on Monday.
Since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded a month ago and began spewing oil a mile under surface, BP has applied about 700,000 gallons of the dispersants on the Gulf’s surface and in experimental undersea applications directly on the leaking well head. That is the largest quantity of dispersant deployed to date to break up an oil spill in United States waters.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/science/earth/25spill.html?hp
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