US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told the Associated Press that BP's efforts to staunch the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico "had a problem Saturday with the latest effort to stop the leak," but didn't elaborate further.
But there's nothing to fret about, is there? It's all chocolate milk and rainbows, according to Congressman Gene Taylor (D-Mississippi).
If that doesn't calm you down, BP CEO Tony Hayward reminded everyone that:
"The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume."Wow. I never thought of it that way. The HIV virus that causes AIDS is really, really tiny. I guess it's nothing to worry about, either.
In the meantime, somewhere between 5,000 barrels and 50,000 barrels a day is spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, and they aren't any closer to stopping it than they were when the explosion and blowout occurred on April 20, 2010.
Meanwhile, Federal approval has been given to use Corexit 9500 dispersant in the water column (it was designed for use on the surface)... a stuff which is itself a health hazard.
It's an act of desperation, sort of like BP's efforts to plug the gusher. Louisiana Health and Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine has strong misgivings about Corexit 9500, and the fact that federal regulators dismissed his worries about the chemicals.
"Our concerns about the use of these dispersants underwater is based on the fact that there is virtually no science that supports the use of those chemicals" Levine said (emphasis mine).
This is going to get worse before it gets better... and it won't "get better" for a long, long time.
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