“BP is burying its head in the sand on these underwater threats,” said Democratic congressman Ed Markey.  “These huge plumes of oil are like hidden mushroom clouds that indicate a larger spill than originally thought and portend more dangerous long-term fallout for the Gulf of Mexico’s wildlife and economy.”

Black waves of oil and brown whitecaps are seen last week in the Gulf of Mexico / Joe Griffin, AP

Finally, British Petroleum is siphoning off a small amount of the oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico, (about 20%) onto a tanker.  But the leak still needs to be stopped as soon as possible.  The U.S. government, after over 3 weeks, has finally announced it is pulling out all the stops to find a way stop the leak.  It’s hard to believe they left this mostly in BP’s hands this long.  Obama is reportedly sending bomb experts and a MARS expert to try to fix the oil spill, according to Bloomberg. Up to 70,000 barrels of oil have been leaking into the Gulf of Mexico since the oil rig sank on April 20th.   None of this fills me with much confidence, since we are now finding out the oil spill is huge and they are discovering enormous “oil plumes” under water.  The story from Bloomberg is below.

“May 14 (Bloomberg) — U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu signaled his lack of confidence in the industry experts trying to control BP Plc’s leaking oil well by hand-picking a team of scientists with reputations for creative problem solving.

Dispatched to Houston by President Barack Obama to deal with the crisis, Chu said Wednesday that five “extraordinarily intelligent” scientists from around the country will help BP and industry experts think of back-up plans to cut off oil from the well, leaking 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) below sea-level.

Members of the Chu team are credited with accomplishments including designing the first hydrogen bomb, inventing techniques for mining on Mars and finding a way to precisely position biomedical needles.

“I don’t think there is a lot of confidence in BP in Washington right now,” David Pursell, a managing director at Tudor Pickering Holt & Co. LLC in Houston, said by phone.  [Are you kidding me?  It took them 3 weeks to get to this point?] . . . . Chu said he’s tasked his team to develop “plan B, C, D, E and F” in addition to finding a way to stop the oil leak.

“Things are looking up, and things are getting much more optimistic,” the Nobel-prize winning physicist said after meeting with the scientists and BP in Houston Wednesday.

BP CEO Meeting — The group convened at BP’s command center in Houston yesterday, where they met with BP leadership, including Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward, the Energy Department said. BP is using more than 500 specialists from almost 100 organizations and welcomes additional help, Jon Pack, [...]