Gulf spill investigators eye undersea evidence

[IDemo]

Source: Associated Press

Wreckage could establish who is responsible for disaster

updated 1 hour 56 minutes ago

NEW ORLEANS — Now that BP appears to have vanquished its ruptured well, authorities are turning their attention to gathering evidence from what could amount to a crime scene at the bottom of the sea.

The wreckage — including the failed blowout preventer and the blackened, twisted remnants of the drilling platform that exploded, burned and sank in mile-deep water in the Gulf in April — may be Exhibit A in the effort to establish who is responsible for the biggest peacetime oil spill in history.

Hundreds of investigators can't wait to get their hands on evidence. The FBI is conducting a criminal investigation, the Coast Guard is seeking the cause of the blast, and lawyers are pursuing millions of dollars in damages for the families of the 11 workers killed, the dozens injured and the thousands whose livelihoods have been damaged.

"The items at the bottom of the sea are a big deal for everybody," said Stephen Herman, a New Orleans lawyer for injured rig workers and others.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38589913/ns/disaster_in_the_gulf/

[dipsydoodle]

1. Including presumably what caused it to sink.

Gulf Oil Spill Caused by Firefighters Flooding Deepwater Rig, Suit Says.

The worst oil spill in U.S. history was triggered by firefighting boats that flooded the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig with water, causing it to sink into the Gulf of Mexico and damage BP Plc’s well, a lawsuit claims.

Commercial fishermen, waterfront property owners and oil industry workers who have lost jobs because of the oil spill yesterday sued 17 companies whose fireboats responded to the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon on April 20. The rig was still attached to the subsea well when it sank two days later.

“It was the flooding of the Deepwater Horizon and the resulting sinking of the rig that directly caused the piping to break and begin spewing millions of gallons of oil into the ocean,” Lloyd Frischhertz and Gerald Maples, lawyers for the spill victims, said in a complaint filed in federal court in New Orleans.

The lawsuit doesn’t seek damages from BP, rig-owner Transocean Ltd. or the U.S. Coast Guard, which helped direct the firefighting effort. The plaintiffs claim the fireboats violated industry standard procedures that warn against using water cannons to attack pressurized oil fires aboard marine vessels.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-15/gulf-oil-spill-caused-by-firefighters-flooding-deepwater-rig-suit-says.html