Obama steps up fight against oil spill
GRAND ISLE, Louisiana, May 28, AFP - President Barack Obama Friday
stepped up the battle against a massive slick lapping the Gulf of Mexico
coast, vowing never to abandon those imperiled by the worst US oil
spill.
As BP pleaded for patience to allow time for its risky, complex “top
kill” to work and plug the massive leak, Obama pledged “to continue to
do whatever it takes to help Americans whose livelihoods have been
upended by the spill.”
The US president, clad in hiking boots and with his sleeves rolled
up, ordered the number of workers feverishly trying to contain and clean
up the spill along the southern US coastline to be tripled.
He toured an oil-slicked Louisiana beach, picking up tar balls to
examine them, as he outlined his administration’s “historic response” to
the disaster which has spewed millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf
of Mexico.
His second trip to the region since an April 20 explosion tore
through the Deepwater Horizon rig, 50 miles (80 kilometers) off shore,
came as experts and residents hold their breath, hoping BP can stop the
oil flowing from a fractured pipe.
Government scientists estimate some 12,000 to 19,000 barrels of crude
a day have been gushing into the Gulf since the rig sank two days after
the blast which killed 11 workers.
“I think the key element here is to exercise patience,” said BP’s
chief operating officer Doug Suttles, adding the operation would last
another 24 to 48 hours.The British energy giant is using robotic
submarines to pump heavy drilling fluids down the wellhead, hoping to
drown the leak long enough to allow engineers to then seal it with
cement.
“We’ll have periods where we’re pumping. We’ll have periods where
we’re monitoring results of that pumping. We’ll have periods where we
actually pump in this, what we call junk,” Suttles said, seeking to
allay concerns over why BP had stopped the pumping several times since
it began on Wednesday.
The disaster has already closed stretches of coastal fishing waters,
endangering livelihoods which are also dependent on tourism, and
threatening a catastrophe for Louisiana marshes, home to many rare
species.“To the people of the Gulf Coast, I know you’ve weathered your
fair share of trials and tragedy,” Obama said, in a reference to the
2005 Hurricane Katrina which triggered a botched response by the former
Bush administration.
“I’m here to tell you that you’re not alone. You will not be
abandoned. You will not be left behind,” Obama vowed. “We are on your
side and we will see this through.”
He said 20,000 people had already been deployed to contain and clean
up the spill, but that he had ordered Homeland Security Secretary Janet
Napolitano and US Coast Guard chief Admiral Thad Allen to “triple the
manpower in places where oil has hit the shore or is within 24 hours of
impact.”Allen, who has been charged with overseeing the government’s
response, said initial signs suggested BP’s “top kill” was succeeding.
“They have been able to push the hydrocarbons down with the mud. The
real challenge is to put enough into the well to keep the pressure where
they can put a cement plug over the top,” he said on ABC’s “Good Morning
America.”
Government data released Thursday would mean between 18.6 million
gallons and 29.5 million gallons of oil have poured into the Gulf far
more than the roughly 11 million gallons of crude spilled in the 1989
Exxon Valdez disaster.
Amid the environmental catastrophe, there were also growing fears for
the health of cleanup workers exposed to the oil and chemical
dispersants.Two more crewmen aboard ships helping burn off surface oil
were evacuated to hospital late Friday after falling ill, a day after
the US Coast Guard announced that seven workers were evacuated for
medical emergencies.Obama said three million feet (910,000 meters) of
hard boom had already been deployed in an effort to stop the oil spill
reaching wetlands and beaches. But he admitted “there’s a limited
amount” available.“We’re going to try to get more boom manufactured, but
that may take some time,” he said.
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