Salazar is from Colorado, where they sometimes like to play cowboy. (Not as much as us Texans, of course.) In context, I can interpret his remark as a colorful way of saying the Feds will endeavor to ensure that BP exercises due diligence in the cleanup.
I agree with your interpretation, not arguing if he should of said it that way or not… Just giving a cite for Tao’s request of a cite of someone in government saying it. I would have to say coming from the US Interior Secretary, it is at least a semi official statement by the administration.
They haven’t given an estimate because BP isn’t giving them the access they need to make one, and the feds are inexplicably allowing this state of affairs to continue.
None of which are equipped to do the necessary work. There are already ROVs on site that are; so many that they have trouble not interfering with each other. And they are being operated by the people that know how to use them.
There is no organization, particularly the government, better able to solve the problem than BP. It’s just that it’s a huge problem that nobody’s solved before.
So this team, which includes no one from BP, and claims to have the best experts in the federal government claims that they don’t have the estimate yet simply because it is extremely difficult to do due to the fact that it is under a mile of water, but you somehow think that isn’t true. Why would the government be lying to protect BP on this issue when they are perfectly willing to slam them on every other issue? How does what you say make even the slightest amount of sense?
The Pisces are still in use! Thanks, I didn’t realize that. They are more than 35 years old. I had read that they were mothballed-but apparently I misread. They recently went through an overhaul. So they are still operating. Cool.
The Hercules and Tiburten are also interesting ROVs. I hadn’t realized that the the Argus sled had been upgraded. The orginal (from Titanic fame) had no manipulators. Tiburon isn’t known to me. I knew MBARI had a method of surveying their canyon, but it is not clear to me that the Tiburten is entirely portable. It isn’t owned by NOAA though.
There are assets outside of the oil industry. Whether they can be usefully deployed is doubtful.
The government needs to assemble a team of the world’s best deep-core drillers, train them to be aquanauts and send them deep into the oil well to set a nuclear charge.