It’s the worst environmental disaster in American history.
Take that in for a moment.
In late May, the BP oil spill was gushing at a rate of 12,000 to 25,000 barrels a day from 5,000 feet below the surface of the ocean, making it far worse than the Exxon Valdez spill that consisted of 250,000 barrels of oil into Prince Williams Bay in Alaska in 1989.
Tuesday, Adm. Thad Allen, the U.S. commander in charge of the response to the spill, said that a containment cap installed by BP is capturing about 14,000 barrels of oil a day.
Do the math: if there’s up to 25,000 barrels of oil gushing per day and only 14,000 barrels are being captured, that means up to 11, 000 barrels of oil are being allowed to wreak havoc on the Gulf every day.
It took several attempts to fix the problem, such as the “top hat” and “top kill” methods, before we arrived at the hit-or-miss containment cap.
It’s clear that BP is out of ideas and its CEO, Tony Hayward, has shown nothing but disdain for the Gulf Coast, its sea life, marshes, fishers, and beaches.
So, why not give James Cameron, the director behind movies like “Avatar” and “Titanic,” a shot at fixing the problem on the Gulf Coast?
Cameron is an innovator of the use of the remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) with movies like his well-known “Titanic” and “The Abyss.”
Earlier this month, Cameron met with Lisa Jackson, director of the Environmental Protection Agency, for a brainstorming session with other underwater technology experts. Cameron wanted to send in one of his ROVs to assess the damage to determine exactly how he could help.
Unfortunately, Adm. Allen felt having another ROV at the sea floor would only cause more problems. Recently, a ROV being used for underwater dispersants bumped into another ROV and caused a tube to become dislodged.
The problem of the ROVs is understandable, but when Cameron offered his extensive knowledge and help to BP, he was quickly shot down.
How can a foreign corporation that is responsible for an oil spill that has created toxic oil plumes up to 3,600 feet below the sea surface and three miles wide, destroyed the way of life for Gulf Coast fishing families for generations to come and has killed almost 600 birds, 250 sea turtles and 30 other sea animals not take advice or at least listen to anyone considered an expert in the same field?
BP execs told Cameron they “had the crisis handled.” After almost two months, it is obvious BP doesn’t have this crisis handled, nor do they care.
Remember, this is the company whose CEO has remarked on the BP oil spill with comments like: “The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean.
The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume,” and “There’s no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back.” Remember, 11 men died when the Deep Horizon oil rig exploded, the initial cause of the oil spill. Can those men get their lives back?
At this point, Cameron is the only logical help for this problem.
Cameron has built the world’s largest underwater movie set, took a trip underwater to explore a German World War II battleship and filmed the underwater documentary “Ghosts of the Abyss” using mini ROVs. Recently, Cameron has been working in a one-man submersible that will take him to the deepest point in the sea, the Mariana Trench. The last time this point was reached was back in 1960 by the U.S. Navy. And get this: the sequel to “Avatar” is set in the oceans of Cameron’s fictional Pandora. If James Cameron can’t at least help with the disaster in the Gulf, I’m not sure who else can.
I know one person who won’t be helping: BP’s do-nothing CEO Tony Hayward.