Ponce
24th May 2010, 09:40 AM
Frustration mounting over BP delays, lack of progress.
'There is really no excuse for not having constant activity'Monday, May 24, 2010 By David HammerStaff writer
VENICE -- On a Sunday of expanding coastal destruction from the Gulf oil disaster and little progress in containing it, frustrations bubbled to the surface from local and state leaders in Venice to federal officials in Houston and Washington, D.C.
Parish leaders and Gov. Bobby Jindal emerged from an afternoon strategy session at a Venice fishing harbor to complain about a lack of urgency from federal agencies and BP to address the oil washing into coastal marshes day after day.
Jindal said he supported a decision by local and Jefferson Parish leaders on Grand Isle on Saturday to commandeer about 30 fishing vessels that BP had commissioned but hadn't deployed to lay down protective boom as the oil came ashore.
The normally dispassionate Jindal even joked that he would go to jail with the mayors of Grand Isle and Jean Lafitte if federal authorities tried to stop them.
More than 65 miles of Louisiana's shoreline has now been affected by oil, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- more than the total sea coastline of Delaware and Maryland combined, Jindal said.
Meanwhile, in Houston, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar blasted the British oil giant for consistently missing deadlines it had set for shutting off the massive well leak still spewing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico each day.
"I am angry and frustrated that BP has been unable to stop the leak," Salazar said at a news conference following hours of morning meetings with the company. "We're 33 days in, and deadline after deadline has been missed."
Salazar specifically cited the company's slow schedule for employing a "top kill" to block the oil spewing at the well head 50 miles off the Louisiana coast.
The plan is to use two 6-5/8-inch hoses to blast 16.4-pound-per-gallon mud into the choke and kill lines of the failed blowout preventer, in hopes of stopping up the four-story-tall device through which the oil is flowing.
Salazar noted that BP had originally promised to kill the well May 18. Five days later, it had planned to do it again, and then put the procedure off to Tuesday.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-14/1274682607159500.xml&coll=1
'There is really no excuse for not having constant activity'Monday, May 24, 2010 By David HammerStaff writer
VENICE -- On a Sunday of expanding coastal destruction from the Gulf oil disaster and little progress in containing it, frustrations bubbled to the surface from local and state leaders in Venice to federal officials in Houston and Washington, D.C.
Parish leaders and Gov. Bobby Jindal emerged from an afternoon strategy session at a Venice fishing harbor to complain about a lack of urgency from federal agencies and BP to address the oil washing into coastal marshes day after day.
Jindal said he supported a decision by local and Jefferson Parish leaders on Grand Isle on Saturday to commandeer about 30 fishing vessels that BP had commissioned but hadn't deployed to lay down protective boom as the oil came ashore.
The normally dispassionate Jindal even joked that he would go to jail with the mayors of Grand Isle and Jean Lafitte if federal authorities tried to stop them.
More than 65 miles of Louisiana's shoreline has now been affected by oil, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- more than the total sea coastline of Delaware and Maryland combined, Jindal said.
Meanwhile, in Houston, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar blasted the British oil giant for consistently missing deadlines it had set for shutting off the massive well leak still spewing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico each day.
"I am angry and frustrated that BP has been unable to stop the leak," Salazar said at a news conference following hours of morning meetings with the company. "We're 33 days in, and deadline after deadline has been missed."
Salazar specifically cited the company's slow schedule for employing a "top kill" to block the oil spewing at the well head 50 miles off the Louisiana coast.
The plan is to use two 6-5/8-inch hoses to blast 16.4-pound-per-gallon mud into the choke and kill lines of the failed blowout preventer, in hopes of stopping up the four-story-tall device through which the oil is flowing.
Salazar noted that BP had originally promised to kill the well May 18. Five days later, it had planned to do it again, and then put the procedure off to Tuesday.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-14/1274682607159500.xml&coll=1