White House Accused of Downplaying Seriousness of Gulf Oil Spill

(NewsCore) - The White House was Thursday accused of downplaying the seriousness of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill after officials declared 75 percent of the oil had been removed, The Guardian newspaper reported.

John Kessler -- a Texas A&M University scientist who conducted one of the first on-site studies of the spill -- said reports that 75 percent of the oil spill had been cleaned up or broken down by natural forces were misleading, if not completely false.

“Recent reports seem to say that about 75 percent of the spill has been taken care of, and that is just not true,” Kessler said on the Texas A&M University website.

“These reports seem to indicate that about 25 percent of the spill has been recovered or removed, another 25 percent has been dispersed, and another 25 percent has been evaporated or dissolved. But the reality is that only 25 percent has been removed from the ocean -- the rest is still out there.

"Just because the form of the material is now dissolved or dispersed doesn’t mean it isn’t in the ocean and doesn’t pose significant problems.”

As BP finished Thursday pumping cement into the Macondo well in the Gulf in an aim to seal it for good, Kessler said the public now believes “the gulf oil spill problem is just about over and we don’t have to worry about it.”

“It’s true the well has been capped and the oil is not flowing, and that’s good,” said Kessler, who headed a National Science Foundation research expedition to the Gulf in mid-June and found methane levels about 100,000 times above average.

“And it also appears the problem of oil pushing into the wetlands and marshes may be decreasing thanks to efforts to remove oil from the ocean surface, which is also encouraging. But the fact is that 50 to 75 percent of the material that came out of the well is still in the water -- it’s just in a dissolved or dispersed form."

Oil has not flowed into the Gulf since July 15, when BP installed a temporary cap on top of the damaged well.

Thad Allen, the Obama administration's top official on the spill, told reporters there would be no new oil in the Gulf.

Carol Browner, the White House energy and climate adviser, said "the vast majority of oil is gone." However scientists and environmental groups have disputed the claims.

Susan Shaw, a marine toxicologist and director of the Marine Environmental Research Institute, said the White House had been too quick to declare the oil was gone.

"The blanket statement that the public understood is that most of the oil has disappeared. That is not true. About 50 percent of it is still in the water," she said.

Rick Steiner, a former University of Alaska marine biologist, suggested that the White House was too eager to move on from the oil spill as Democrats in Congress face election in November.

"It seems that there was a rush to declare this done, and there were obvious political objectives there," he said. "Even if there is not a drop of oil out there, and it had truly magically vanished, it would still be an environmental disaster caused by the toxic shock of the release of five million barrels of oil."

The well had reached a "static" condition, BP said, as work progresses on the final phase of sealing it permanently.

The cementing on Thursday followed the injection Tuesday and Wednesday of about 2,300 barrels of heavy drilling mud, which is now keeping the oil in the reservoir.

Even though the cementing operation could permanently kill the well, engineers are still seeking to drill a relief well scheduled to intersect the damaged well by mid-August.

The most recent estimates suggest nearly five million barrels of oil gushed from the well in the weeks and months after the Deepwater Horizon rig caught fire April 20 and sank two days later.

BP has paid $303 million in claim payments to more than 40,000 individuals and businesses impacted by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the company said Thursday.

The British oil giant said it had paid out $112 million in the last three weeks alone and would continue to pay claims until the Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF) takes over claims processing for businesses and individuals later in August.