VENICE, La./WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – The U.S. government yesterday 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 yesterday it is siphoning 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons/795,000 litres) 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 (1.6 km) tube was tapping into the larger of two leaks from the well.
However, live video feed of the leak, provided by BP <BP.L>, 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.
The leak started after the well blew out on April 20. The resulting rig explosion killed 11 workers.
Proegler and other BP spokesmen made clear the increased containment, while an advance, was not siphoning all the escaping oil.
“We’re not claiming that we stopped it — although that is our final objective. We’re saying that this is what we’re capturing now,” he said.
The U.S. government, grappling with a potentially huge environmental and economic disaster, also said on Thursday it would not rely only on data given by well owner BP, but would make its own checks on the total size of the leak.
