The announcement that the Deepwater Horizon Well Head has been capped is being blared all across ABCNNBBCBS with headlines "oil no longer gushing into gulf." Among the more naive, it may be understood if they have the impression the problem is over (except for the cleanup) because that is the message being sold to the public.
But is it reality, or is it politics? There is no question that the Gulf Oil disaster is not going to help Democrats retain their hold on Congress come November. Senator David Vitter points out, correctly, that President Obama has a vested political interest in convincing the public that the problem is over, so that it will fade from public memory in the few months from now until the November elections.
Yes, British Petroleum and Transocean screwed up, but it was Obama's administration which failed to get the problematic US Minerals Management Service to properly exercise their job of oversight and safety inspections on the Gulf drilling rigs. MMS had been scandalized going back to 2008 for doing favors for and accepting gifts (including sexual favors) from the oil companies they were supposed to be keeping an eye on. In some cases, MMS let the oil companies fill out their own safety reports! The US Government knew what was going on and even issued a report on the problems with MMS.
Obama had over 400 days in office to do his job os getting the government to do their job, but failed in his primary task of taking care of this country, apparently too distracted with his love of Israel to pay attention to what was going on closer to home.
Obama makes a good show of rushing down to the gulf to "kick ass" and act like he is taking care of the situation, but in truth his job was to prevent such disasters from happening in the first place, not pose like a firefighter standing heroically over the wreckage after-the-fact.
In June, Thad Allen stated that the oil leak would last well into the fall election season!
Obama needs the Gulf Oil disaster to go away because it will be an election loser for the Democrats if the public is still thinking about it in November. Obama himself may be untouchable in this election because he is not running, but the public thirst for vengeance will find easy targets in Democratic candidates.
The announcement of the attempt to cap the well this last week was greeted with stunned amazement among experts (those not on BP's payroll). After all, BP had admitted back in May that the drill pipe and well casing had at least one leak 1000 feet below the blowout preventer; the reason the Top Kill procedure had failed.
CNN reported on two other potential leaks at 9,000 feet and 17,000 feet.
Back in June, video from the Remotely Operated Vehicles on the ocean floor spotted oil leaking up from fissures in the sea floor near the well.
That the drill pipe itself was destroyed in the initial methane "kick" that ignited the platform fire was underscored by the fact that two sections of the drill pipe had been jammed up inside the blowout preventer.
Common sense (and engineering) will tell you that if you have a pipe with leaks, putting a cap on one leak simply drives the oil out the other leaks. From an environmental perspective this makes no sense, because the oil is still leaking out of the well, just in a different place. Of greater concern is that the oil can flow out into the surrounding rocks the way the mud did during the failed Top Kill procedure, forming what is called a subsurface blowout. This is a huge bubble of oil inside the rock. The danger is if the bubble ruptures and the oil collected over 80 days of leakage rushed to the surface of the gulf all at once. Such a surge of oil could easily engulf and founder the surface ships.
Capping a well with known leaks below the surface really serves only one purpose, and that is to present to the media video images showing the well is capped, so that they can reassure the public the problem is over and please vote Democratic-or-you-are-just-being-a-racist.
But the hard reality being withheld from the public is that the problem is not fixed. The leak has not been stopped, it has just been moved out of sight. The camera feed of the capped well head will be shown constantly to assure Americans that all is well and lull us back to a useful torpor. No other views from around the well will be allowed.
Except that the cat is already out of the bag!
The following videos were captured from the live video feed of one of the BP ROVs. Recorded after the well cap test had begun, a test even the BP experts admit failed to generate the pressures that would signal "success" these videos clearly show what looks like oil seeping up through the ocean floor near the well head.
As you can see, while the well (or some well) appears to be capped, and looks good for Obama's political purposes, the reality is that the oil leak is not fixed, only shifted away from the well head cameras and the light of the media, where it is hoped Americans will not notice it.
Even as Obama's administration declared the crisis over and 75% of the oil already cleaned up, millions of dead fish started washing up along the coastline in the first days of August. 
Evidence is starting to surface that BP has pulled a fast one and has changed the well being shown on TV.
According to documents filed by British Petroleum with the US Minerals Management Service, there are two wells in the area of the spill. The first well, Well "A", was drilled early this year, ran into troubles, and was abandoned. Then Well B was drilled, which resulted in the explosion which destroyed the Deepwater Horizon. ( There is a typo on page 10 of the MMS PDF regarding the Y coordinate for well B. The Y coordinate is correctly printed on page 3 and page 11. You will see that the dyslexic person who typed out the report switched a '1' and a '4' on page 10. Please be aware of this because otherwise it will lead to a lot of confusion!!)
I will allow a reader to explain further about which well we are currently being shown...
I put these simple sheets together to show people who don't have time to through my very long blog post the clear side-by-side comparisons of Well A's onscreen ROV coordinates with it's planned location in BP's Initial Exploration Plan for MC252. Under that are three different video captures of Well B spewing oil, and the Plan's coordinates for it. This should be easy enough for even people who haven't been following the story to understand.
BP's own spokeswoman, Sheila Williams, told me this in an email response denying that any work was ever done at site B:
" thank you for your email here is the response to your queryBP ‘s exploration plans for Mississippi Canyon, Block 252, references two possible well locations -- well location "A" and well location "B." But BP eventually sought and received approval to drill only one well -- a well at the "A" location referenced in the exploration plan. This one well is now known as the MC252 (or Macondo) exploratory well. The Transocean Marianas rig started drilling the MC252 exploratory well in October 2009. The Marianas rig was subsequently damaged by Hurricane Ida, so in February 2009 the Transocean Deepwater Horizon was brought in to finish the well.
Regards
Sheila Williams
BP Group Press Officer
Tel: (office) + 44 (0)2074964851
Mobile: +44 (0) 07788190449
e-mail: sheila.williams@uk.bp.com
BP International Limited. Registered office: Chertsey Road, Sunbury on Thames, Middlesex, TW16 7BP. Registered in England and Wales, number 542515. VAT Number GB 243510593."
Here are quotes from an article on the Deepwater Horizon disaster from Offshore-Technology.com:
"The rig started drilling a well at a water depth of 5,000ft in MC block 252 in February 2010, but exploded during drilling in April 2010. The rig was on fire continuously for three days.
The well was planned to be drilled to 18,000ft, and was to be plugged and abandoned for later completion as a subsea producer.
As per the plan, the rig was supposed to be drilling the second of the two wells planned. But it faced oil spills over two fronts: one at the wellhead and another at the surface offshore. The wells are located in lease G-32306 over the prospect."
So there it is: Deepwater Horizon was drilling at the second site, and BP are lying. Ms. Williams may not have knowingly lied, she may have been told that work was only ever done at one well and that BP only received permission to drill at site A. All you have to do is look at the pictures and coordinates of Well A and Well B to see that there indeed two sites, two wells were constructed, both were leaking BP are now only showing us the nicely capped, clean Well A.
It is my theory that the giant explosion which came up from underground and surged up through the drilling rig, exploding it, was powerful enough that also damaged Well A, which is only about 120 feet away from Well B, the stricken well. There were reports that Well B's blowout preventer had been rocketed miles away from the well site by the force of the blast. So I think both took damage -- B, where Deepwater was drilling, I think is totally gone if the story of the blowout preventer is correct. I believe BP have shown us site A 99.9999% of the time so that they could go through the charade of replacing the cap on that one, which they capped in 2009 ahead of the hurricane which blew through. They accidentally left the public live feeds on the Skandi rovers a couple of times, and luckily people who didn't know what they had on their hands uploaded these to Youtube. I found them -- three videos of oil coming out from a well which BP says it never built.
Well B is still out there if what I fear is correct, still destroyed and so badly that it cannot be capped at the wellhead. And even if it could be, BP itself reported that they had found leaks in the well casing, meaning that even a successful cap on the wellhead would not stop the oil from leaking out of the shattered well casing and from the vents that have formed in the ocean floor. But we are told it does not exist, so I guess it doesn't. Even though these pictures prove the thing is out there.
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