Catastrophe in the Gulf: How Bad Could It Get?

The ongoing oil spill is an environmental calamity like none the U.S. has ever faced. And it's not just residents of the vulnerable Gulf who will get hit by it. This time we're all going to feel the pain

By Bryan Walsh/Venice, La. Thursday, June 03, 2010
    • Peter van Agtmael / Magnum for TIME

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    Despite that series of setbacks, BP officials seemed hopeful that the top-kill method — in which a dense slurry of clay and other minerals would be force-fed down the gullet of the blown-out well — would turn out differently. But that too came to naught as the pressure of the rising oil continually overcame the force of the incoming mud. The procedure was finally abandoned over concerns that continuing to drive thousands of pounds of dense mud into a bleeding wound could weaken the remaining pipes over the well, accelerating the leak. "This scares everybody — the fact that we can't make this well stop flowing, the fact that we haven't succeeded so far," a seemingly helpless Suttles said on May 29.

    BP isn't without a backup to the backup. On June 2 the company undertook what is called a lower-marine-riser-package containment, or LMRP. Robots began slicing off the top of the well's riser pipe, preparing to place a containment cap over the well itself. In the short term — perhaps a few days from the time the pipe is cut to when the cap is in place — the effort could actually increase the flow of oil by 20%. But if the procedure is successful, which in this crisis would be a first for BP, the LMRP should capture what Suttles calls the "vast majority" of the oil flow until the relief wells that are now being drilled are completed. If it's not successful, things will get uglier still, since BP has decided that a contingency plan to try to attach a second blowout preventer atop the first may not be feasible. The idea has not been scrapped, but it has been tabled indefinitely.

    For the people of Louisiana, on the front lines of a spill that will certainly swallow their summer and perhaps their way of life, the continued inability to stop the leak is a frightening possibility. "I can't describe for you how much that news hurt," says Glenn Dufrene, a 47-year-old truck and airboat driver from southeastern Louisiana, speaking of the top-kill failure. "This is the first moment I've felt like maybe we could lose some of our precious swamplands."

    From the Gulf to the Potomac
    The swampland that is Washington is feeling the effects of the BP mess too. On the one hand, President Obama confronts an emergency in which his presidential power is severely limited. The federal government simply doesn't have the know-how or equipment to cap the gusher; it would be a bit like asking BP to administer the Medicare program. Yet it's not clear that the public fully appreciates that reality. Disapproval of Obama's handling of the spill is steadily rising as a chorus of political and opinion leaders — from loyal Democrat James Carville to Washington veteran David Gergen — has smacked him for a supposedly listless and ineffective response.

    It's mostly an unfair rap. Sure, there are some valid reasons for Obama to pay a political price. It was congressional, not presidential, pressure that forced BP to make its live images of the underwater oil flow available to the public. And it's apparent that neither Obama nor his senior team made regulatory rigor at the Minerals Management Service (MMS) a top priority; MMS director S. Elizabeth Birnbaum, an Obama appointee, resigned on May 27 after reports of poor management. All this is damning for a President who ran, in part, on the promise of a more competent government.

    But many of Obama's critics are zinging him for reasons that have less to do with management than with stagecraft. Pundits have complained that the President hasn't displayed visceral public anger and that he isn't spending enough time camped out on the oily Gulf shores, hugging the stricken locals. Yes, displays of executive emotion can sometimes have a meaningful impact. Confident bully-pulpit words can calm financial markets, while angry ones can deter foreign enemies. But getting angry won't help Obama solve this problem. The President's job isn't to offer catharsis. It's to run the government and get things done. The first measure of success on that score will be simply to stop the bleeding well, which is why Obama may have been wise to resist seizing control of the whole operation from the industry that — for better or worse — is best positioned to do the job.

    That said, Obama has shown some skill at calibrating his Administration's tone, allowing Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to play pit bull with his threats to shove BP out of the way and his promise to keep his boot on the oil company's neck while maintaining presidential dignity when the press questioned the value of such rhetoric. "I would say we don't need to use language like that," the President said. But he hastened to add, "What we need is actions that make sure that BP is being held accountable. And that's what I intend to do."

    The White House has started to get better at those much discussed optics too. On May 30, for example, climate-and-energy czar Carol Browner openly declared what most other folks had already realized when she conceded, "This is probably the biggest environmental disaster we've ever faced in this country." That admission signaled a change of course, one that would stress BP's culpability for the catastrophe and leave the company to twist in ways it hadn't before. The Administration benched Rear Admiral Mary Landry, who had helped run the spill response and served as Coast Guard spokeswoman, often using that position to laud BP's efforts thus far. On June 1, Admiral Thad Allen, Landry's boss and the lead federal official on scene, announced that he would no longer conduct joint briefings with BP. And the same day, the White House dispatched Attorney General Eric Holder to meet with federal and state prosecutors in the Gulf, marking the start of a criminal investigation into the spill.

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