BP told to preserve blowout preventer as evidence

[kpete]

Source: McClatchy

BP told to preserve blowout preventer as evidence

By Mark Seibel | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Thursday ordered BP to remove the failed blowout preventer from its Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico and preserve it as likely evidence in civil and criminal investigations.

Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen issued the instruction after a week of what he called "intense negotiation" between BP and government scientists over how to proceed with completing a relief well that BP has been drilling since May 2.

Allen has called the relief well the only way to be certain that the BP well is dead. Previously, he'd predicted that the relief well would be completed this week. The new instruction will push back that date until sometime after Labor Day, Allen said.

"We do not want to have damage to the blowout preventer," he said in explaining the delay. "We are concerned about preserving evidence."




Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/08/19/99406/bp-told-to-preserve-blowout-preventer.html

[gratuitous]

1. What will happen if BP disregards this "order"?

I mean, it's looking backward to the past and I know we're not supposed to do that, but destroying evidence doesn't seem to be a crime anymore. Folks are free to blow off subpoenas, destroy evidence, lie under oath, and solicit fake "legal" rationales for all sorts of wrong-doing. We don't prosecute that stuff. BP could run a video of the utter destruction of the blowout preventer, and I'd bet a dollar to a hole in a doughnut that neither the Obama administration nor Congress would do a thing.

[awoke_in_2003]

3. a strongly worded letter...

from John Conyers.

[Bluestar]

2. A strongly-worded letter is forthcoming! n/t

[TheEuclideanOne]

4. They told them what?!?!?!???!?!!?

Oh crap. Did the White Hosue forget who's boss? Wow, the administration is going to get a lot of shit for overstepping their bounds on this one. You just watch.

[bergie321]

5. So do criminal prosecutors

As murderers to bring the murder weapon with them to court?

[Poboy]

7. Indeed. Where are the arrests?

[tclambert]

6. "Blowout Preventer? Oh, so sorry, that was hopelessly damaged during the well capping efforts."

"Psst, Larry, quick! Smash the Blowout Preventer."

[SlipperySlope]

8. The blowout preventer doesn't belong to BP.

The failed blowout preventer is the property of Transocean. I don't understand why BP is being ordered what to do with it. Then again, I don't understand the division of responsibility between the many companies involved here.

[Javaman]

9. BP's response...

"sorry old chap, but we melted it down. Oh and we did it the green way. We powered the furnaces with the souls of all the animals we killed with our oil slick. Ta!"