Friday, June 11, 2010

Yeah, that sounds about right

Dan Froomkin, in a typically sunny column about BP's response, drops this little nugget about one of the ways the British petroleum giant may have made things worse.
The "top kill" attempt that shot tons of mud down the well pipe in an attempt to plug it didn't work -- and may instead have scoured the pipe clean of blockage that was keeping some of the oil down. It could also have set the stage for a catastrophic structural failure.
I have no idea if that is true or not, but it sounds pretty much par for the course. Frankly the only way BP could have made things worse was if we found out the broken pipe was a hoax and they were just deliberately pumping oil into the ocean for shits and giggles. I expect we'll find that out next week.

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