Let me be clear, I am a fan of James Carville, although we do not agree on all issues, he has always been a tireless supporter of the Democratic Party, and has effectively defended Democratic candidates and Democratic positions, for decades, in that caldron of misinformation known as the national media. Mr. Carville is many things to many people, and most of it, I’m sure, quite positive.
Still, no one has ever described this effective Democratic advocate as an oceanographer or an expert on catastrophic oil spills. Though we value his opinion as we value the opinion of many in a society that venerates the concept of freedom of speech; his opinion, nevertheless, as it relates to the devastating oil spill, which is currently swirling in the Gulf of Mexico, is simply conjecture.
There has been a growing chorus of individuals bent on casting blame on the Obama administration for not being able to control the oil spill. Carville recently stated that he thought the Obama administration has been "lackadaisical" in its response to this emergency, despite documented evidence, which is listed below, of the White House working diligently on this matter.
Carville is one of many in the media including Chris Matthews, who are now, after being confronted with such a tremendous catastrophe, looking hard and fast for someone to take the blame, and because, in Matthews’ estimation, Barack Obama isn’t sufficiently frothing at the mouth and issuing plumes of steam from his nostrils, it is clear that he is "lackadaisical" and is partially at fault.
In steps Sylvia Earle, American oceanographer and formerly chief scientist of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. She is a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, and has amazingly led more than 400 expeditions, with more than 7000 hours logged underwater. Earle is quite respected in her field and has received institutional awards and more than 100 national and international honors. A noted expert on the impact of oil spills, she was charged with leading a number of research trips during the Gulf War and following the accidents of the Exxon Valdez and Mega Borg.
I’m sure James Carville’s work in this industry would provide a perfect counterpoint to this learned lady. And so, it was interesting to hear Earle’s views this past week on Matthews’ Hardball. They were sobering enough that even the "Obama is not angry enough" Matthews was quite stunned and was effectively quieted.
There has always been this belief by some that this situation would have been better handled if only the Obama administration had taken over the operations of the destroyed rig and "fixed things". This idea that the administration or the government might be better equipped in dealing with an accident of this magnitude, at this moment, was cogently and effectively disposed of.
MATTHEWS: Do you have any confidence that this government is going to stop what we‘re looking at, this horror of this oil going up the East Coast?
EARLE: Well, we can all hope that we can use the technologies that are out there. But we need better methods for actually working underwater. Actually, the industry, the oil industry, has the best technology presently in the world, except maybe certain navies, for actually observing and working in the sea.
The scientific community, NOAA, the - the Coast Guard, we‘re ill-prepared to deal with something of this sort or even to evaluate the consequences to life in the sea. We don‘t have submersibles. We don‘t have fleets of remotely-operated systems of the sort that the oil industry does have at our disposal.
I mean, we can hire from the industry such devices. A few institutions, such as Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, have undersea vehicles, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California, of course, Scripps, and others. But where‘s—where‘s the capability for fast response on part of the Coast Guard or NOAA or any of the other federal agencies to be there on the spot...
Interesting, this points out what many believe, that having just been in office for less than a year and a half, the Obama administration should have corrected decades of ill-preparedness and, within a month, instituted technologies and whip the Navy and Coast Guard into shape so they would be better equipped to deal with this matter.
Matthews speculated that perhaps we could send divers 5,000 feet below the surface of the water, with torches, to shut off the leak. He has been criticizing the administration for days, yet he knows so little regarding the mechanics, the existing technology, and the hardship involved in undertaking such an enterprise.
MATTHEWS: Well, that‘s what I‘m asking about. Is the problem getting a submarine to get—can we use our fleet of submarines to go down there and get men, frogmen, down there with torches and begin to close up that—that hole in that pipe? What is the problem, getting there? Is it the transportation to the bottom of the sea, a mile down, or is it the technology of closing that hole?
EARLE: We don‘t have submersibles that can go to 5,000 feet, except for the Alvin, a few systems that exist in the whole world. There are only four submersibles that can go to half the ocean‘s depth. And this country doesn‘t have any of those. It‘s Japan, China, France. We‘re not—and Russia—we‘re not in the game to go really deep with manned systems.
MATTHEWS: How did we drill—how did we drill this pipeline? How did we create this oil well down there, if we couldn‘t get down there?
EARLE: We have got the technology to actually accomplish that kind of work in the deep sea, even essentially nearly twice as deep, and the robots that are developed to be able to go down for maintenance, inspection and repair. But that‘s under normal circumstances.
To deal with something of this sort is a major challenge that I think nobody anticipated that we would ever have to do this. There are some unique problems with dealing in deep water and dealing with the oil that comes out of such an area, as compared to what is released at the surface. For one thing, of course, it‘s cold. And then there‘s the pressure. These are factors that we‘re just not prepared to have to—to deal with. And we have to get up to speed fast. The technologies arguably do exist. I mean, the capability is there.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
EARLE: But we haven‘t made the investment to have a garage filled with submarines, a garage filled with remotely-operated systems, and the talent to be able to go down independently of industry and respond.
MATTHEWS: Well that was an exquisite description of a horror. Thank you so much, Sylvia Earle of the National Geographic, terrible horror, nonetheless.
This is not Hurricane Katrina. I know there are many salivating at the prospect of comparing Barack Obama to George W. Bush in terms of his response to this man-made crisis, but this case does not provide a realistic comparison.
The issue of stopping the flow of oil into the gulf, following the destruction of the Deep Water Horizon oil rig, is an issue of operational and technological inadequacy, of decades of neglect, and industry shortsightedness, this new administration is working diligently with the tools in its possession, unfortunately the tools are not good enough. I know some might expect Barack Obama to go down to the bottom of the ocean and wrestle this beast into submission, but realistically speaking, it is not feasible. Nevertheless, the blame continues.
White House Diligently Working On Oil Spill:
http://m.whitehouse.gov/...
Hardball Broadcast with Sylvia Earle:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...