BP's Chairman defends company's safety record [View All]

[Vinnie From Indy]

It's just a guess, but I will venture that we are being lied to on a grand scale about the real volume of oil spilling from the well. I will also guess that when all is considered in a year's time, this will be the worst environmental accident in the nation's history far greater than anything we have ever experienced before.



VENICE, La. — BP's chairman defended his company's safety record and said Sunday that "a failed piece of equipment" was to blame for a massive oil spill along the Gulf Coast, where President Barack Obama got a firsthand update on the slick creeping toward American shores.

BP PLC chairman Lamar McKay told ABC's "This Week" that he can't say when the well a mile beneath the sea might be plugged. But he said he believes a 74-ton metal and concrete box — which a company spokesman said was 40 feet tall, 24 feet wide and 14 feet deep — could be placed over the well on the ocean floor in six to eight days.

McKay said BP officials are still working to activate a "blowout preventer" mechanism meant to seal off the geyser of oil.

"And as you can imagine, this is like doing open-heart surgery at 5,000 feet, with — in the dark, with robot-controlled submarines," McKay said.

more at:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/top/all/6986345.html