Government Charges BP with Coverup – Demands BP Put All Gulf Oil Spill Data Online Within 24 hours.

  Posted by - May 20, 2010 at 7:15 pm - Permalink - Source via Alexander Higgins Blog
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Feds charge BP with a coverup, demand spill data be published online within 24 hours

Nola.com writes

Feds order BP to put all Gulf oil spill data on Internet
As it becomes clear that BP has under-reported the amount of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico from its blown-out well, the federal government is now demanding that the company publicly share all of its plans, reports and video on the Internet.

A joint letter from Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson blasts the company, saying its efforts to keep the public and government officials informed of their efforts to contain the spill “have fallen short in both their scope and effectiveness.”

The letter demands that BP create a website within 24 hours and post on it a copy of the letter from Homeland Security and EPA, as well as the company’s monitoring plans.

The letter lays out a specific format for the website and says that within 48 hours BP must post “all environmental…, analytical data from samples of oil, dispersant” and other samples related to the spill, as well as location of boom, oil plume trajectories and the locations of dispersants.

Reuters reports that the Government has gone as far as directly charging BP with a Coverup

(Reuters) – The U.S. government on Thursday accused energy giant BP of falling short in the information it has provided about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, in a clear sign of Washington’s growing frustration with BP’s handling of the spiraling environmental disaster.

In responding to this oil spill, it is critical that all actions be conducted in a transparent manner, with all data and information related to the spill readily available to the United States government and the American people,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a letter.

The officials said in a letter to BP CEO Tony Hayward that despite claims by BP was making efforts to keep the public and the government informed, “those efforts, to date, have fallen short in both their scope and effectiveness.”

The statement followed allegations earlier in the day that BP has engaged in a “cover-up” about the extent of the damage and the amount of crude flowing unchecked from its ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico.

BP Plc said on Thursday it siphoning 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons/795,000 litters) per day of oil, from 3,000 barrels a day previously.

“The oil plume escaping from the riser pipe has visibly declined today,” BP spokesman Mark Proegler said after the company announced that a mile-long tube was tapping into the larger of two leaks from the well.

However, live video feed of the leak, provided by BP, showed a black plume of crude oil still billowing out into the deep waters.

BP has been estimating the leak was flowing at a rate of 5,000 barrels per day, but scientists and the government have questioned that figure.

Scientists analyzing video of the oil gushing from the seabed have pegged the spill’s volume at about 70,000 barrels (2.9 million gallons/11 million liters) instead per day.

“It’s just not working,” U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, who heads the Environment and Public Works Committee, told CNN as she watched the BP video. The California Democrat denounced a “cover-up” of the real size of the oil spill.

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