Feds demand that BP provide confidential Gulf oil spill data
BP has yet to comply with federal requests to produce confidential internal data regarding the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Nor is it providing direct answers to an order that it use another, less toxic dispersant to mitigate the oil.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson wrote to BP Group Chief Executive Tony Haywood Thursday demanding that the company produce all data it has collected and plans to collect following the April 20 explosion that capsized the Deepwater Horizon, an oil rig BP leased and operated that subsequently wrecked an undersea wellhead that continues to spew oil into the Gulf.
The letter demands that the company hand over all documents including 鈥渁ny and all sampling and/or monitoring plans, records, video, reports collected by BP, its contractors, subcontractors, agents or employees鈥� as well as any 鈥渞eports of internal investigations.鈥� Ms. Napolitano and Ms. Jackson want all such data posted on a website, saying that the public is 鈥渆ntitled to nothing less than complete transparency.鈥�
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In a press conference with reporters Friday, however, BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles downplayed the request, saying his team 鈥渉as been working very cooperatively and open from the start.鈥�
鈥淲e鈥檙e going to do everything we can to comply,鈥� Mr. Suttles said, while also expressing concern that, due to the 鈥渕assive amount of information鈥� requested, he 鈥渨ould not want the administrative effort to slow down the response effort.鈥�
EPA orders less toxic dispersant
Suttles was similarly ambiguous about BP progress toward a separate EPA directive this week ordering the company to stop using Corexit, a dispersant the EPA had previously rated as being low in effectiveness and more toxic than some alternatives. The agency told BP it had a day to 鈥渋dentify a less toxic alternative鈥� and three days to begin using it.
Suttles said that Corexit 鈥渋s the most widely used dispersant in the world for this type of activity鈥� and that BP has yet to identify another product that is both widely available for immediate stockpiling and less toxic.
鈥淲e will continue to look at other options,鈥� he said. 鈥淭here are a number of those out there, but we have to understand more about the details of their composition.鈥�
How much and at what rate oil is spilling into the Gulf is a major issue in the debate over transparency.
Dispute over spill volume
Since the explosion, BP has continued to estimate the oil leak at 5,000 barrels a day. Independent analysts have disputed that number, saying the more likely volume is much higher.
The US Coast Guard is establishing a team of technical experts from federal agencies, national science laboratories, and academia to determine a best estimate for both the flow rate and escape volume.
Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry said the team will include Steven Wereley, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University, who calculates the oil is leaking at 70,000 barrels a day.
Landry said the team will be required to produce a report that will determine 鈥渨hat we think is the actual estimate from this well 鈥� so we can get a very accurate estimate of the flow rate.鈥�
Their efforts, she said, will not interfere with the continued progress of containment efforts, particularly the 鈥渢op kill鈥� procedure scheduled as early as next Tuesday.
鈥淩egardless of the scientific progress for determining the flow 鈥� our resources and our tactics are not constrained by any flow estimate,鈥� she said.
IN PICTURES: Louisiana oil spill
Related:
EPA scolds BP in Gulf oil spill: dispersant is too toxic, change it
Gulf oil spill: 'top kill' could be last best chance to stop leak
