Why BP Won't Measure the Oil Spill - Science and Tech - The Atla. >In the latest sci-fi development from the Gulf oil spill, scientists have found enormous oil "plumes" beneath the ocean's surface.
With this, and last week's underwater footage of oil and natural gas gushing out of the ruptured well, it's apparent that BP's estimate of the amount of oil entering the Gulf each day is at once laughably and horrifyingly low. Weeks ago, not long after the spill was first verified, BP, the Coast Guard, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimated that the well was leaking 5,000 barrels of oil a day. How Bush's DOJ Killed a Criminal Probe Into BP. Mention the name of the corporation BP to Scott West and two words immediately come to mind: Beyond Prosecution.
West was the special agent-in-charge at the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Criminal Investigation Division who had been probing alleged crimes committed by BP and the company's senior officials in connection with a March 2006 pipeline rupture at the company's Prudhoe Bay operations on Alaska's North Slope that spilled more than 200,000 gallons of oil across two acres of frozen tundra - the second largest spill in Alaska's history - which went undetected for nearly a week. Click here to listen to Scott West discuss this report on Democracy Now!
In fact, West, who spent nearly two decades at the EPA's criminal division, was also told the pipeline was going to rupture - about six months before it happened. He first aired his frustrations after he retired from the agency in 2008. In Nigeria, Oil Spills Are a Longtime Scourge. Allen Gathman.