PRESIDENT BARACK Obama responded to critics of his response to the BP oil spill in the Mexican Gulf yesterday by travelling to Venice, Louisiana, a town of 2,000 citizens that looks set to bear the brunt of the April 20 disaster.
Mr Obama received a fast education in Gulf shipping lanes, well-capping procedures and the economic and environmental implicationos of the spill, which continues unabated.
The president met Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, a Republican and erstwhile rival who has criticised the federal government and BP for failing to do more to contain the leak.
Admiral Thad Allen, the commandant of the Coast Guard whom Mr Obama appointed to head spill operations at the weekend, and Lisa Jackson, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, also briefed him.
Mr Obama called the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico “a massive and potentially unprecedented environmental disaster” and insisted the federal government’s response was quick and aggressive.
Echoing widespread dissatisfaction with the pace of the effort, The New York Timescompared it to Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the same area in 2005, and the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska. "Now we have another disaster in more or less the same neck of the woods (as Katrina), and it take the administration more than a week to really get moving," said the Times.
Mr Obama’s administration initially trusted BP’s assessment of the leak and the British oil company’s assurances that it could cap the leaking well and prevent the oil slick from reaching landfall. “Every American is affected by this,” Mr Obama said. “Your government will do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, to stop this crisis.”
The President said the spill puts in peril “the heartbeat of the region’s economic life.”
Up to one third of the seafood consumed in American comes from Louisiana. Shrimping, fishing and oyster harvest areas on the Louisiana coast have shut down.
Fishermen are renting their boats to BP for use in the clean-up effort, for about $2,000 a day.
Admiral Allen admitted that no one knows how much oil is gushing from three holes in a pipe on the seabed fllor , under 5,000 feet of water. Nor is it known how long the leak will continue.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates that 210,000 gallons or 5,000 barrels may be pouring into Gulf waters daily. But experts using satellite imagery believe the real amount could be five times that much.
By law, BP must pay all costs arising from the spill, currently estimated at up to $8 billion.