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Rick's List
Capping the Leak; Animals Threatened by Oil Spill; 'Top Kill' Under Way
Aired May 26, 2010 - 16:01 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Meanwhile, we are now into the second hour. We have promised that we would stay with this story. Here is what the overall theme of what we're going to do is.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SANCHEZ (voice-over): This is a special edition of RICK'S LIST.
Will top kill work? Can they cap this disastrous leak?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We want results. We're tired of promises.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What are we going to do? How are we going to survive?
SANCHEZ: Fingers crossed, tempers flare.
TONY HAYWARD, CEO, BP GROUP: We rate the probability of success as somewhere between 60 and 70 percent.
SANCHEZ: Why is it being run by this guy?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go in, completely take over, perhaps with the military in charge.
SANCHEZ: We're drilling down on this RICK'S LIST special edition: "Capping the Leak."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANCHEZ: Welcome, everyone. I'm Rick Sanchez. Here we go.
We are now about an hour-and-a-half into what has begun in the Gulf of Mexico. It's being described, as you know, as top kill to try and stop the oil leak, which is presumably devastating the Gulf of Mexico.
Before we do anything else, let me set the table here for you. We -- we're being joined. And this is going to be a conversation. It's going to be fluid. We have got pictures coming in of what it actually looks like at the bottom of the ocean, six or seven, sometimes eight different angles. Let's show those now, if we possibly can, Roger. There you see them. You see the top three right there, as we pull out a little bit. Then you see another three at the bottom. And from time to time, I'm going to be pulling and zooming into those pictures, because you will see robotic arms actually moving pipes and fittings into place to make sure that this top kill operation actually works.
And who is going to be helping us through this? Well, let me introduce our panel to you, if we possibly can, first of all, here in the studio, Chad Myers, our meteorologist, who's been all over this story since it began, Brooke Baldwin, obviously, who's been in contact with the Cousteau society as well as people in the Gulf of Mexico, who, frankly, are getting extremely upset about what this is doing to their livelihood, not to mention their hometowns.
We're also going to be joined by John Hofmeister. John Hofmeister wrote the book titled "Why We Hate The Oil Companies: Straight Talk From an Energy Insider." This guy worked for the Shell Oil Company. He was a former top guy, in fact, the president of Shell Oil, and he's going to be telling us what the problems might be from an institutional standpoint.
We also have Professor Satish Nagarajaiah. He's a civil and environmental engineer and an expert on exactly what you're seeing right there. He will tell us what these pipes are, what the robotic arms are attempting to do, and what the probability is that this top kill operation can work.
But, before we go to all of them, we're joined now as well by Representative Ed Markey from Massachusetts. He and Senator Bill Nelson, as you know, have been pushing the administration and pushing BP to try and take this situation much more seriously, get the job done, and make it as -- as transparent as possible.
In fact, part of the reason we're seeing these images today is because of the work in part of both Ed Markey and Bill Nelson.
Congressman Markey, thanks for being with us, sir.
REP. EDWARD MARKEY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Thanks for having me on, and thank you for your excellent coverage of this entire catastrophe.
SANCHEZ: Thank you, sir.
Where we are right now, it appears that we're an hour-and-a-half into it. We still don't have a sense as to whether or not it will work or it won't work. The Coast Guard seems to be approving everything. And I will ask you the same question I asked your -- one of your colleagues over in the Senate, Bill Nelson.
We were told by the professor and we were told by BP, Tony Hayward, there's a 30 percent chance this won't work. If this does not work, or, worse, if this makes the situation worse as far as the leak is concerned, what do you propose that we do?
MARKEY: That is a very good question. And, hopefully, by the close of tomorrow, it will be a question we do not need the answer to because this has been a successful operation.
I -- I'm watching right now the spill cam, the way you are, which is why, a week ago, I firmly insisted that BP make this available for all the American people.
SANCHEZ: Did they -- did --
MARKEY: It's -- it's -- it's their spill, but it's America's ocean, and we have a right to see what's going on.
SANCHEZ: Did -- did -- should it be -- two questions, did they do this, upon your request, graciously or kicking and screaming?
MARKEY: Well, on that day, not only was I firmly requesting it, but I also had four scientists there, including Mr. Wereley, who were testifying before my committee. So, the evidence was very much conclusive that this was not a spill of 5,000 barrels per day, that it was much, much larger.
And I think, at that point, they just decided to throw in the towel and let the people of our country, and the world, by the way, see what's going on, because, within two hours after I put it up on my Web site, the entire thing crashed. That's how many hundreds of thousands, millions of people are now watching this on an ongoing basis.
In answer to your question, which I hope is an eventuality that we do not have to deal with, I think, at that point, we won't -- have to call in all of the other oil companies. Call in Raytheon, call in General Dynamics, ask the Norwegians, ask other countries for their expert judgment as well, because we would at that point have pretty much exhausted what -- what BP's strategies are, and we will then -- we would otherwise be confronted with no relief until August from this catastrophe.
SANCHEZ: Let -- let me show you --
(COUGHING)
SANCHEZ: Hey, Roger -- pardon me for coughing -- Roger, in the control room, did you see if -- I think I asked Ash (ph) earlier today to supply us with those pictures of Tony Hayward when he was on the beach, hmm, day before yesterday, before he held that news conference, that uncomfortable moment, where he and some of his aides started yelling at reporters.
I -- I thought that was a -- was a telling moment, in -- nothing else, display of a man going through a very difficult situation.
I wanted you, Representative Markey, to -- to look at that shot of Tony Hayward. And even if we don't get up, I just want your response to this question. As you consider Tony Hayward, is this the man that you, as a U.S. congressman, is this the man that the American people want dealing with this situation?
MARKEY: I think it's pretty clear that BP, from the very beginning, has been making it up. They really did not have a plan in place to deal with a catastrophe of this size.
In fact, last summer, on a different rig, they certified that they could handle a spill of 250,000 barrels per day, in other words, an Exxon Valdez a day. They're contending that this is only 5,000 barrels per day. And it's obvious that they had nothing in place that could deal with something like this.
SANCHEZ: Listen --
MARKEY: There's no plan to go down 5,000 feet into the water.
SANCHEZ: Congressman -- Congress --
MARKEY: Yes?
SANCHEZ: I'm just -- just -- just stop for a moment. I want the folks and you at home to listen to this. Watch this exchange.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everyone, go back. Do the press conference back here now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(CROSSTALK)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: It's almost like he's seeing it for the first time. And then watch how he reacts, how he tells reporters to get away.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please, please, stand by.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you can't go back and stay over there, I'm not going to do a press briefing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: Look at this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come back to you. We will come back to you in a second.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- back to the press briefing right now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. We will do it right over here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everyone, go back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: There's something about that picture, Representative Markey, that left me and about, you know, 500, 600 people who tweeted me on that day saying, you know, I'm a little uncomfortable with a guy from another country coming over here and telling residents and members of the establishment of our media, the free press that we have in this country, that they're not allowed to be in a certain place or shoot certain pictures.
They were very uncomfortable with that. I don't think it helped him from a P.R. standpoint. And then you come on just moments ago and say, look, this guy's making it up as he goes.
That's not encouraging.
MARKEY: Well, I -- I don't think that the American people, up until today, have any reason to be encouraged. Hopefully, they will be successful in their effort that they are conducting right now.
But, you know, BP engaged in a boosterism --
SANCHEZ: Hmm.
MARKEY: -- that led to complacency, and complacency leads to disaster. And this is a disaster.
And they sold this whole drill, baby, drill argument, accidents can't happen, waivers of environmental safeguards, the biggest spill could only be 1,500 barrels total. All of those were representations that were being made by BP.
SANCHEZ: But it -- but -- but it's -- but --
(CROSSTALK)
MARKEY: And now, as he -- as they walk along the shore, the catastrophic consequences of not having a safety plan in place, contingency plans in the event that the safety plans don't work, are evident to everyone.
SANCHEZ: But --
MARKEY: And these poor people down there and their livelihoods are going to be affected for a generation.
SANCHEZ: But, as we look at the pictures sir, I have to tell you, yes, BP may have messed up -- and some people are saying they did, but you know what? They didn't mess up by themselves.
Is this not an institutional failure? Should not the U.S. government, the regulators, Mineral Management, have been all over their behinds to make sure that they were doing the right thing, so that something like this didn't happen?
MARKEY: I'm with you. I mean, MMS used to stand for Minerals Management Service. Now it stands for misconduct, mismanagement and spills. That's really what that agency is all about.
SANCHEZ: Yes.
MARKEY: And it's got to be tipped upside-down, cleaned out, and a whole new structure has to be put in place because of the lessons that are clearly now evident of what happens when you give categorical exemptions for safety and environmental protections being put in place.
(CROSSTALK)
MARKEY: And -- and that assumption that an accident cannot happen is at the core of everything that we are seeing right now.
SANCHEZ: Congressman Ed Markey, thank you, sir, for your time, for your diligence, and for your kind words.
MARKEY: Thank you, sir.
SANCHEZ: I appreciate it.
We're going to continue this conversation in just a moment. We're -- we're -- we're all over this story from an environmental standpoint, an economic impact standpoint. We're also talking obviously about the politics.
But, most of all, if you stay with us, I promise we're going to be bearing down on what's actually going on right now 5,000 feet below the surface.
In fact, let's go back to those pictures, if we can, Roger. These are the live pictures that we are getting right now from the bottom of the ocean. Each one of those represents a different part of the top kill plan. One of them, you will see a robotic arm moving a pipe. Another one, you will see the fitting itself. Another one shows you where the leak actually is.
Another one is taken from a little further back, and each one of them is important. So, we're going to be joined in just a moment by two people who can help us through this. John Hofmeister, who wrote a book entitled "Why We Hate The Oil Companies," and he's in charge of Shell Oil Company for a long time, he can take us through some of these institutional questions that we were raising just moments ago.
You are watching -- and we will all learn as we go, I should say -- you're watching RICK'S LIST, your national conversation, your LIST.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Lives have been destroyed and a lot more lives are going to be destroyed. Way to go, BP!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: A couple of things going on. Welcome back, everyone. We're staying live during this national conversation, what is a national emergency as well, and that's the situation in the Gulf of Mexico, the oil that just continues to pour out from that leak, and is devastating, many people fear, both from an economic standpoint, an environmental standpoint, not to mention some of the folks who are getting hurt by this at the White House as well, as you just heard in our conversation a little while ago.
Brooke Baldwin is joining us now. She just got a new picture that's coming in from one of our correspondents down there.
Brooke, what do you got?
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This picture just completely took my breath away. Take a look at this.
This is from Tracy Sabo, our Dallas producer who is down there producing with Rob Marciano. Let me -- let me give you some background information. I have been e-mailing with her.
This picture, this is one of about 30 they took. They took off on a boat from Venice, Louisiana. They went -- she said they went 12 miles out from South Pass into the Gulf. She said the water was about 850 feet deep in this particular section, and listen to this. She said they saw dead eel floating.
I mean, this is the first that I have seen, this is the first bit of black, black oil. This is -- when you think of Exxon Valdez, this is what you see. But this hasn't been what we have seen thus far in this situation. She said dead eel floating, shark disoriented swimming through it, awful, super-thick crude. We just wanted to throw it up here.
Hopefully, I can get some more pictures from --
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: No, we get it. It's representative of what we have been seeing, as a matter of -- I mean, it's not like something that stands out, because it's -- it's -- well, it's like I said, Chad. It's representative of some of the pictures that we have been seeing both from the shoreline as well. She says that one was taken, interestingly enough, way out in deep water, 800 feet.
So, that's not -- as you always say, that's not a sheen. No, I mean, that's viscosity --
(CROSSTALK)
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: No. Yes. And, you know, if you look underneath the ring finger on the -- on the -- the glove here, you can see texture to that oil. It's not flat anymore. Do you see how there's like a little ridge, a bump --
SANCHEZ: Yes.
MYERS: -- where they put the hand in, took the hand out? It didn't level off right way. This is older oil. This oil has been in the water a longer time, lost a lot of the other properties that made it the different colors, and now this is what's left.
This is just sludge --
SANCHEZ: Interesting.
MYERS: -- that's sitting in there right now.
SANCHEZ: Yes.
MYERS: And Rob said he didn't see one skimming boat.
SANCHEZ: Rob Marciano.
MYERS: Rob Marciano is out there. He also said that they had to have respirators on because the quality of the air was so bad, they couldn't stand to breathe it.
BALDWIN: Wow. Wow.
SANCHEZ: Well, there's kind of the information that you need just before you start your dinner.
Thank you.
(LAUGHTER)
SANCHEZ: All right, let's go to those -- let's go to those pictures once again, the six pictures, because I want to bring in John Hofmeister now. As we look at these, you see that, again, you know, it's -- it looks like -- the one on the top left, top row, all the way at -- we will call that number one. That's the oil leaking out, similar to what we have seen in the past. See that right there?
And it seems consistent with what we have seen in the past. It's a combination of, you know, oil and natural gas. Now go to number two, if we possibly can, and you will see one of the robotic arms working on what is part of the blowout preventer. And there you see that.
That's part of the blowout preventer and one of the pipes that's going to be put in. Now you see number three, if we can go to that one. I know sometimes it takes a little work. There you go. And that looks like part of one of the submersibles. And it looks to be moving one of these pipes, or straws, as we have been calling them in our little representation there, that eventually will throw in or blow in the cement and the mud that will hopefully cap this thing. John Hofmeister -- let me tell you who John Hofmeister is. He's joining our panel now as well. We have got some great -- we have had some great guests and a lot of different voices over the last hour and 18 minutes. But John Hofmeister certainly is as interesting as anyone else that we have spoken to so far, because of his -- the depth of knowledge that he has regarding oil companies and his experience.
He wrote a book that's titled "Why We Hate The Oil Companies: Straight Talk From an Energy Insider." Well, what makes him an energy insider? This guy was president of the Shell Oil Company. And he's been talking about this ever since.
Good to have you, sir. Welcome to RICK'S LIST.
JOHN HOFMEISTER, AUTHOR, "WHY WE HATE THE OIL COMPANIES: STRAIGHT TALK FROM AN ENERGY INSIDER": Thank you, Rick.
SANCHEZ: I know we have been wanting to talk to you for some time.
Let me just throw out a very general question at first. Given where we are right now, an hour and 19 minutes into this operation, what are your thoughts as you watch this thing unfold?
HOFMEISTER: Well, I think, you know, it is a must-do process that has to be done as well as possible.
I'm sure that the engineering that has taken place in the crisis center, I'm sure the ideas that have been incorporated from other major oil companies, other academicians, other institutions that have been part of this engineering design will play out, and it will either work or it won't work. But --
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: And what if it doesn't? And what if it doesn't? What if -- what -- what if -- what -- what --
(CROSSTALK)
HOFMEISTER: -- because we have got to stop that flow.
SANCHEZ: What if it doesn't?
HOFMEISTER: Then we go to the next potential temporary stop program. Well, we call it the junk shot. And if the junk shot doesn't work, then you try, then you try to bring in another BOP, another blowout protector, and put it on top of the current blowout protector.
BP has no choice but to try everything humanly possible, one event after another after another, with the best minds, the best engineering talent, the best scientists, to try to stop this flow. Meanwhile, keep drilling that relief well.
SANCHEZ: I used to have a football coach who used to always kick me in the butt whenever I thought I was getting a little too cocky, and maybe had had a couple of good games and suddenly I thought that no one was going to be able to stop me.
I know it's a strange analogy, but, to a certain extent, did BP -- and I'm asking you this question as the president of Shell Oil Company for some time -- did they get cocky? Did they start doing the things that we all know in life you need to do to get it right all the time, practice, due diligence, test, confirm? You know what I'm talking about.
HOFMEISTER: Well, it's all about execution, isn't it?
SANCHEZ: It sure is.
HOFMEISTER: From the very beginning of a project to the very -- to the decommissioning of a project, execution is the most important task to perform.
And we have to find out why, in this case -- remember, BP has become the largest operator in the Gulf of Mexico. They have many, many other platforms and wells. They are executing on all of those other platforms, to the best of my knowledge.
What happened in this case that the execution fell apart? That has to be seriously undertaken to find out who, at what stage, either made a bad judgment, either accepted something that shouldn't have been accepted. And finding out what actually happened is the most critical next step once we get this well stopped, but it's got to be stopped.
SANCHEZ: I can't wait to ask you another question about Tony Hayward and the way he's dealing with this and what he's up against right now, speaking of a president, about another executive.
But I want to bring in Chad Myers now. He has a question for you, sir.
MYERS: Mr. Hofmeister, there are 4,000 operating wells in the Gulf of Mexico. Were we overdue for this, or did we just -- did something really go wrong and this should never have happened?
HOFMEISTER: This should never have happened.
There have been 35,000 wells drilled in the Gulf of Mexico, and this has never happened. This is an -- in the fullness of time, as horrible as it is, I believe this will be an anomaly. The industry knows how to do this. It's been doing it for decades with no incident.
The fact that this happened means something went horribly, terribly wrong, and it should never have happened and it should never happen again.
SANCHEZ: But what do you say --
(CROSSTALK) HOFMEISTER: And -- and the government --
SANCHEZ: But what -- and I just need to interrupt you. As I hear you respond that way, what do you say to the people who have gone on television on this show and said: "You know what? I knew they were cutting corners. I knew, when they tested the blowout preventer, they weren't keeping it to five minutes of pressure. They were cutting it off in 30 seconds"?
We know now that there was a battery that should have been changed that wasn't changed. These are legitimate questions that you and I take care of in our cars before we put our kids in the backseat and drive with them. Why did these companies not get the pressure to make sure they did that as well?
I will ask you that when we come back. Stay right there. We have got to get a break in.
You're watching RICK'S LIST, your national conversation.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: We are talking to someone we have been wanting to talk to for some time, because he -- I mean, talk about an insider. He's written a book on this. It's John Hofmeister. And we're going to continue the conversation in just a minute.
But, if you will indulge us, Mr. Hofmeister, I understand we have got some brand-new pictures coming in.
And I want to go over to my colleague, Brooke Baldwin.
Brooke, what is coming in off the Gulf now?
BALDWIN: Right. So, we had that one single picture of what was Rob Marciano's hand reaching into this nasty, oily mess here in the Gulf. And now we just turned around some of this video.
So, again, Tracy Sabo, Rob Marciano, this is our team. And they went about 12 miles out from Venice, Louisiana. You can kind of hear Rob talking, but this is his -- this is his hand. And they're about --
SANCHEZ: Geez.
BALDWIN: They told me the water was about 850 feet deep here. But this is the thick, goopy, oily --
SANCHEZ: Oh, my goodness.
BALDWIN: Chad was saying, what, Chad, that this obviously has been around for a while, and that's why it's so highly vis -- thick.
(LAUGHTER)
SANCHEZ: Something about viscosity or thick. (LAUGHTER)
BALDWIN: Viscosity, viscous. I'm going to go with thick.
SANCHEZ: Even John Hofmeister probably gets a kick out of that one.
Chad, what do you think of this?
MYERS: I think that that's a kill zone.
SANCHEZ: Yes.
MYERS: There's -- there's not a dolphin that can surface there. There's not a turtle that could surface there and survive get coated in that.
SANCHEZ: That's terrible.
John Hofmeister, your impressions of this video as it continues to come in. Boy, how would you like to be the president of a company having to deal with video coming in like this on a national news program like ours being watched by hundreds of thousands of people?
HOFMEISTER: Well, I have been offering a suggestion, that we ought to have supertankers on the surface of the Gulf sucking in all of that oil. Rather than dispersing it, let's suck it in and take it off, and put it in storage tanks, and separate the water, and go back out and get some more.
SANCHEZ: Hmm.
HOFMEISTER: If we put a -- a small fleet of supertankers into the mix there, with their huge pumps sucking in millions of barrels of seawater mixed with oil, we could perhaps clean some of that mess up.
SANCHEZ: Interesting point.
Now, back to my question to you about this being one of those aberrations, a thing that just happened, but there --
HOFMEISTER: Yes.
SANCHEZ: There seems to be some information that we have received leading up to the possibility that maybe they were a little careless, that maybe they didn't do their due diligence.
What do you make of those accusations, and is it possible that there was kind of an institutional failure here, not just with BP, but with the people who are supposed to be their watchdogs?
HOFMEISTER: There are two human factors on a rig that are absolutely critical that are watched like a hawk, at least by the company I came from and other companies that I know.
One is, you have to have command-and-control authority at all times. You have to have someone of sufficient experience and management capability, that you know someone is absolutely in charge, whether something goes right or something goes wrong.
The second is, you have got to have open and transparent communications, especially in a world of a rig, which is like a small village, but of subcontracted companies.
I wrote an op-ed for "The New York Times" a couple of weeks ago --
SANCHEZ: Mm-hmm.
HOFMEISTER: -- about the risks of outsourcing on oil rigs. And, if the communications become corporatized, instead of human communications, you could have a real problem on your hands.
SANCHEZ: Did that happen here?
HOFMEISTER: I think we need to get to the bottom -- I don't know. I have been advocating that, you know, rather than having these congressional hearings about things we don't know, I would much rather have an investigation be taking place to find out what happened when, who said what to whom, get all the witnesses to testify.
The people who made the accusations, ask them the basis of their accusations. Let's get to the bottom of this and take us -- take it wherever it takes us, because the reality is that this can't happen again.
SANCHEZ: Could it be, yes or no, an institutional failure?
HOFMEISTER: I doubt that it's an institutional failure.
BP has been out there for a long time doing many things well. They have excellent people, many of whom I know and I respect. The fact that they have this incident has traumatized this company. That's not forgiveness. It's just a statement of fact. It is a traumatized company. Never in their worst imagination could this have happened. But it did. Now they have got to deal with it.
I've sat in the crisis chair through the whole Katrina debacle. And I can tell you, sitting in that crisis chair, with the government on the one hand blaming you for oil shortages, gasoline shortages, and high prices, the media on the other hand, the public not getting gasoline, no electricity, people not having jobs, not getting paid, the crisis is a -- it's a cumulative effect. It's very hard to manage, but I do believe that they have chain of command to make decisions that need to be made.
SANCHEZ: We respect you, sir, for taking time to share your experience with us, and for taking us through this as well, and fielding, even though it's not your company -- it's certainly still your industry -- some very difficult questions.
My thanks to you.
HOFMEISTER: Thanks for having me.
SANCHEZ: We're also going to let you know what some of the folks in the Obama administration are saying. The interior secretary, Ken Salazar, saying what a lot of you have been saying on Twitter, as a matter of fact. We'll share that with you.
And as we go to break one more time, let's take the image, not just the first one, but the other five, as a matter of fact. As we stay on the air here at CNN, we are committed to letting you know, video frame by video frame, minute by minute, what's going on 5,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico.
You're watching RICK'S LIST, and we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: We've been taking you through a series of photos 5,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. You see one of them there. That's the point of origin for the -- for the leak itself, and then you see other images of this top kill operation in progress now, as of -- 2:00 it began. So I think I got my math wrong the last time I said it.
It's now 4:34. That means it's two hours and 34 minutes in.
We're watching as it progresses. It's going to be slow and steady. They're being very careful not to do more damage and actually increase the leak, but it's not just a story about what's going on down at the bottom of the ocean, or bottom of the Gulf. It's also a story about what's going on both at the surface and in the water itself.
The number of animals that now are being documented as affected by this, the sea life, the sharks, the fish, the crabs -- and moments ago Brooke Baldwin says that she made contact with one of our correspondents who sent her some video.
This is interesting, Brooke. What is that?
BALDWIN: Yes. So, what we're looking at is this is an eel. In fact, Tracy Sabo (ph) told me she thinks -- she was told this was a deep sea eel.
So, this is -- we saw the video of the hand scooping into the oil about 12 miles out the coast of Louisiana, off Venice. This is an eel that was found floating, she told me, on the surface of this water.
SANCHEZ: Is it dead?
BALDWIN: It's dead. She told me that the smell in this area was horrendous. In fact, they had to wear protective gas masks, respiratory masks, just to be in this area.
But she said the most frightening part for her and her team was the look on the scientists' faces, you know, when they're finally, for the first time, getting out there seeing how thick this oil is, and they're seeing the ecological ramifications up close.
SANCHEZ: Let's look at this video.
BALDWIN: Here's the video.
SANCHEZ: Yes. This is the Marciano video, right?
BALDWIN: This is the Marciano video. This is shot by Don Swan (ph). And this is the stuff.
SANCHEZ: Look at the viscosity of that oil. I mean, it's almost like --
BALDWIN: It's 850 feet deep, she told me, right around where they are. And this is -- you know, we see a lot of the different pictures, and it's kind of in that -- you see kind of that orangey mix. But this is a very thick, thick oil.
I'd be curious to see what the video might look like underneath. We don't know how thick and how viscous this may be, but --
SANCHEZ: And Chad, that's a kill zone. Nothing lives in there, right?
MYERS: There's nothing that could surface and survive in that. Absolutely not. That is just toxic.
SANCHEZ: Yes.
BALDWIN: This is a huge dolphin habitat, guys. Tons and tons of dolphins. They saw sharks out here, stingrays. You name it, it's out there.
SANCHEZ: That's too bad. Thanks, Brooke --
BALDWIN: Thanks.
SANCHEZ: -- for bringing us up to date on that.
The story continues. This is a special edition of RICK'S LIST. And we are going to continue to take you through the pictures and the news and the reaction from the bottom of the Gulf to the very top of the surface, and beyond.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: Welcome back. I'm Rick Sanchez.
Brooke Baldwin, Chad Myers, both joining me as we continue our discussion of what's going on in the Gulf of Mexico today.
For those of you just now joining us, I know this may sound repetitious to some of you, but two hours and 39 minutes ago, operation top kill began in the Gulf of Mexico. The idea is to literally try and cap, or, really, maybe better said, plug that oil, that disastrous oil leak that is taking place.
It is under way. As far as we know, it seems to be proceeding steadily. But it's a very careful operation involving an awful lot of people, an awful lot of money, and a lot of very specific technologies.
So, we'll take you through those pictures. In fact, let's show the six pictures we have right now.
These are six separate pieces of video, each one reflecting a different angle of what is going on 5,000 feet below the surface, one mile below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, where that oil leak actually is.
And joining us now, also joining our discussion, is Casi Callaway. She's the executive director and baykeeper at Mobile BayKEEPER. Really believes, does Ms. Callaway, that the environmental impact is going to be not just on a national basis, but also perhaps on a global impact, that this leak, this disaster will have.
You say that this will impact the entire region for many, many years. Explain that to our viewers, if you would, as they look at some of the oil continuing to seep out of the bottom of the Gulf.
CASI CALLAWAY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MOBILE BAYKEEPER: Well, thanks so much for having me on.
I would love to be here under other circumstances, of course, but that is what we're seeing. We've got oil, potentially millions of barrels of oil, coming out of the Gulf of Mexico, and we don't know what it's going to stop. Hopefully, top kill will do it and we'll be finished with that portion today, and we'll start focusing only on the cleanup.
But even if it's done today, the cleanup is going to be long term and long lasting. The Gulf of Mexico is -- it's our seafood. It's the seafood for the world. It's the largest producer of seafood in the world.
SANCHEZ: We get that. We certainly understand that. But what are we doing wrong?
Do you believe there's something that we -- and when I say "we," the indirect we, all of us living in the United States and who love that coastline, including someone like myself, who grew up in Florida and has a vacation planned in the Florida Keys next month. What should we have done that we're not doing?
CALLAWAY: Well, frankly, we've let the government get away with a lot lately. And it's not -- we're letting the government get away with a lot. The government is, therefore, letting industry get away with a lot.
What they have been able to do in the Gulf of Mexico, they can drill down a mile. They should have been able to stop and plug a hole that they created down a mile. SANCHEZ: But they say they could have if the blowout preventer would have worked. And it should have worked, but it was an aberration.
But now we have all of these gallons, hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil, in the Gulf of Mexico. At this point, what do you suggest that we do, or is there nothing we can do? Will we see this oil in places all the way from Naples, Florida, to New Orleans?
CALLAWAY: Well, we absolutely think there's stuff that can be done. We think there's stuff they're doing we don't want them to do. So there's a laundry list.
But essentially, there are people who need to be focused on plugging that hole, and that is all they need to be doing. And they need to be trying a whole lot more than three things in 36 days.
We don't think that's acceptable. We think there ought to be a whole lot more ideas and a whole lot more implemented.
But on the ground and on the coastlines, there's a lot. Alabama has 100 percent of its contingency plan, or kind of shoreline protection plan, in place. And we have hundreds of acres of marshlands that are completely not protected.
And that's just my little shoreline. Louisiana should have known and been prepared.
SANCHEZ: And you say that's unacceptable?
CALLAWAY: Yes, we do.
SANCHEZ: My thanks to you.
CALLAWAY: We want to see more, and more can happen.
SANCHEZ: And a lot of folks in Louisiana are asking for the same thing. But unfortunately, it takes resources, it takes money, and it takes time to create islands, for example, that are dredged so that they can stop the oil from coming ashore.
I'll tell you, it's a huge problem, and my thanks to you for getting the environmental perspective in on this conversation as well.
Casi Callaway, director and baykeeper at Mobile BayKEEPER.
Meantime, we're coming back in just a moment. Brooke Baldwin has some brand new information that she's going to be sharing with us with the impact that this is having with folks who are, well, having their livelihood affected by this.
Just how many? Stay there folks. We're coming right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: Much has been made during this newscast as to who we can use to help the situation in the Gulf of Mexico, maybe jobs that we can create right now with some of these fishermen who may not have anything else to do.
Brooke Baldwin has detailed on that trending story for us now -- Brooke.
BALDWIN: Right. So, you know, imagine you're a fisherman down in the Gulf area. What do you do? You can't go out, you can't grab the shrimp and the oysters, or at least in large part.
So, a lot of these men and women are hired by BP to set these booms out all along the coastal area to keep some of that oil at bay. Right? So that's good for some of them.
This is Jean Lefete (ph) out of Louisiana. But there was a group of people, some very frustrated fishermen out of Pensacola, who brought their very public anti-BP message to a highway, who say BP is not hiring them.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've been told some things, and it does not seem to be the case. We've been told we'd be hired first, the charter and commercial fishermen would be put in front of everybody else because we were the first ones hit by this issue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They have hired a lot of people already, but they have not hired the local captains like they said they were going to.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: To be fair, some of those fishermen we just heard from, they have seen a little bit of money from BP already, but they say it is nothing compared to what they think they will need long term. They're losing, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars over this.
SANCHEZ: Yes. They say it would be the 29th biggest economy in the world if you incorporate all the different states in the Gulf and the industry that they have there from tourism on down.
BALDWIN: I mean, it's just nuts to wrap your brain around right now.
SANCHEZ: And it's being affected. Exactly.
BALDWIN: Yes.
SANCHEZ: One more time, Brooke, thanks so much.
The pictures now from the bottom of the ocean -- or the bottom of the Gulf, I should say. You see the six of them there across the screen. Each one of them representing a different angle on exactly what's going on there in the Gulf of Mexico.
We're staying with this story and we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: Welcome back. I'm Rick Sanchez.
And the operation is on. Wolf Blitzer is joining us now. He's going to take part of that coverage as well.
Wolf, what you got?
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to have extensive coverage, just as you have, Rick. This is a big day. This is a critical moment.
All of us want to know if this top kill is going to work on not work, and we should know in the next few hours, they say, maybe a little bit longer. But it's a critical moment right now.
They started at what, almost three hours ago exactly? So let's wait and see what happens. We're all keeping our fingers crossed because the stakes obviously are enormous. If it fails -- and it's possible it could fail -- who knows what they're going to have to do.
SANCHEZ: Well, I'll tell you what they're going to have to do. They're going to have to start dealing with this, as is suggested by many, from a governmental standpoint.
I mean, some people are going to say, you know, maybe the Obama administration has to step up. Maybe they have to, you know, ask for the Stafford Act, declaring this a disaster, and having maybe even military resources used to try and solve this somehow.
Right?
BLITZER: The only problem is that the government agencies involved say that they don't necessarily have a better answer than BP does right now and the oil company executives, all the experts who work for the various oil companies.
If you speak to the commandant of the Coast Guard, Thad Allen, who's in charge, overall charge of the operation, he says the government doesn't have the answers. People at the Pentagon say the military doesn't have the answers. Carol Browner, we interviewed her yesterday, the former EPA administrator, who's now the so-called energy czar at the White House, saying they don't necessarily have the answers.
So we just can't assume that if the government were to nationalize this problem and take charge, we'd have a better answer.
SANCHEZ: Thanks so much, Wolf. We'll certainly look forward to "THE SITUATION ROOM" today as we continue our coverage on this -- well, the leak that won't stop, and the plans that are now, as Wolf said, almost three hours into this top kill model that's being used to try and put it out.
We'll stay on it for you.
Stay right there. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: Welcome back.
We are looking at pictures from under the Gulf of Mexico, several of them. The one you're looking at right there is the point of origin for the leak itself.
We've had several guests on that have been taking us through exactly what the significance of all of these videos are. And top kill, in and of itself, is pretty easy to understand when you consider what they're trying to do.
Here's how it's been explained to us several times by some of the professors who have joined us from different universities. And you know what? I went in the old studio that we had, and I asked some of the guys if they had a piece of pipe laying around, and they did. They gave me this piece of pipe.
I asked them to drill holes in it, and they did. And I put these straws right there into these holes to show pretty much what it is that they're trying to do, which is, essentially, the leak is here, using my pen. This operation essentially puts this cylindrical device over the leak, and then in each one of these straws they -- as if almost -- as if they're injecting the mud and the concrete that goes into it, hopefully enough that it will create enough weight to create an equilibrium with the pressure of the natural gas and the oil coming in through here, eventually settling it back down and stopping the leak.
It may be the best layman explanation, completely nonscientific, obviously, for what they're trying to do. And fingers all over the country are crossed.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: By the way, our coverage here at CNN is going to continue on the situation in the Gulf. Wolf Blitzer is going to be taking you through the next couple of hours.
I thank you for staying with us these last two.
Here now, Wolf Blitzer in "THE SITUATION ROOM."
