US prepares for the worst after best hope of oil solution falls apartBy Stephen Foley in New York
Monday, 31 May 2010
The Gulf of Mexico oil spill is the worst environmental catastrophe that the US has ever faced, the White House conceded yesterday, as it warned Americans to be prepared for oil and gas to keep leaking into the ocean for almost three more months.
Forty days after the fatal oil rig explosion that ripped a hole in the sea bed, BP gave up on its latest desperate bid to stop the flow, a failure that the company said "scares everybody".
By yesterday, its engineers had returned to the drawing board to design a new way of funnelling some escaping oil to the surface for collection. It is a process that, if successful, will capture a majority of the oil, leaving the rest to swell a slick that is already licking the shore in Louisiana, affecting sensitive wildlife areas and threatening the livelihoods of fishing communities along the coast.
Bobby Jindal, the Governor of Louisiana, declared that the state was in "a war to protect our way of life".
Many beaches that would normally be teeming with visitors for the Memorial Day long weekend were deserted yesterday, and residents reacted with anger and despair at news that the so-called "top kill" procedure had failed. BP had spent three days pumping mud and junk into the hole, in what Robert Dudley, BP's managing director, called an attempt to "wrestle this beast to the ground". The beast proved stronger than their efforts, however; pressure forced most of the material back out, and government officials became alarmed that further increasing the pressure of the injected material could have dangerous consequences. ............(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-prepares-for-the-worst-after-best-hope-of-oil-solution-falls-apart-1987508.html
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