Interview With Admiral Thad Allen
CROWLEY: Joining me now to help us understand where we stand on the oil spill is Admiral Thad Allen, commandant of the United States Coast Guard. Thank you for joining us.</s>ALLEN: Hi, Candy.</s>CROWLEY: First of all, just give me the lay of the land at this point.</s>ALLEN: Well, it's -- we're, kind of, fighting a multi-front war right now. First of all, regarding the spill itself, it's really not a large, monolithic spill. It's actually subdivided into a lot of smaller spills. Our big concern right now is oil that's coming to shore around Port Fourchon in southern Louisiana and trying to redeploy our forces there to meet that. At the same time, we're seeing tar balls in Mississippi and Alabama. And this spill has really spread out wide concerning its perimeter, but it's really concentrated, heavy starts, throughout the area of about a 200-mile radius.</s>CROWLEY: The last time you and I talked, I asked you, on a scale of one to 10, with the Exxon Valdez being a nine, where this is. You thought it was pretty high up there. Where would you put it on the scale today, knowing what you know?</s>ALLEN: Well, by the time we get this leak sealed, the volume that's out there is probably going to start to approach that much. What's very different from the Exxon Valdez is the point of discharge here. That's 5,000 feet under the surface. There's No human access there. Almost all the work is being done with remotely operated vehicles. That is vastly different. Its makes this a much tougher technical problem. We had a grounded ship before, and we knew how much oil was there. Right now, until we seal that leak, this is an indeterminate amount of oil that's coming to the surface.</s>CROWLEY: Let me ask you, they want in New Orleans, in Louisiana, to build, sort of, a barrier before the barrier islands to try to catch the oil before it comes in and does damage, burns, if you will, which will require some dredging. They haven't gotten permission from the U.S. government; they haven't got BP to say that they'll pay for it. Would the U.S. government give its permission should BP pay for it?</s>ALLEN: Well, we're in the process of looking at the proposal. Right now, the Army Corps of Engineers is looking at it from a permitting process.</s>ALLEN: Rather than wait until they're done and they say, all right, here's what we think we should do, what do you think, from an oil spill response, we're engaging them right now. In fact, I've been in contact with the local political leaders in Louisiana. We're talking to the parish presidents and working with the Corps of Engineers. We're specifically looking at, are there smaller projects that wouldn't take a long time? Some of these will take almost a year to do, six to nine months. Is there something we can do right now quicker that may have a better effect? And those conversations are under way.</s>CROWLEY: I want to play you something that the secretary of the interior, Ken Salazar, said recently in a conversation I had with him, the same day I talked to you.</s>KEN SALAZAR, INTERIOR SECRETARY: Our job is basically to keep the boot on the neck of British Petroleum to carry out the responsibilities that they have both under the law and contractually to move forward and to stop this spill.</s>CROWLEY: Now in what way have you kept the boot on the neck of BP? What have you forced them to do? Because from the outside looking in, it looks like BP is in control and doing their thing. That's the perception.</s>ALLEN: Well, first of all, BP's operation is being run out of Houston, Texas, and from the start, we have put Coast Guard people down there, Department of Interior people. The secretary, too, from Energy...</s>CROWLEY: What are they doing, though? Are they saying, BP, do this now? Or is BP saying, hey, we're doing that, and you go, check?</s>ALLEN: Well, what is happening is there is -- it's really a collaboration, including the rest of the oil industry as well. Last week we had what we called a scientific summit on the conference call. Secretary Salazar, Secretary Chu. BP had to go step-by-step on how they're going to this top kill that's going to be attempted in a couple of days. And all of the assumptions of BP before were questioned by people like John Holdren in the Office of Science and Technology Policy. So as these ideas are brought up, and courses of action are determined, metaphorically being pulled through a knothole by some of the best minds in our country from the Sandia Labs and places like that. So there is a lot of oversight going on there.</s>CROWLEY: So but what -- people want to know and there is a good deal of frustration, particularly down in these states where they're sort of watching, they feel, helplessly, this oil coming at them either under the surface or on top of it. And they say, why is BP in control now? They don't trust BP, so why is BP in control of this?</s>ALLEN: I don't think it's an issue of control. What makes this an unprecedented anomalous event is access to the discharge site is controlled by the technology that was used for the drilling, which is owned by the private sector. They have the eyes and ears that are down there. They are necessarily the modality by which this is going to get solved. Our responsibility is to conduct proper oversight to make sure they do that. And with the top kill that will be coming up later on this week, that's exactly what is happening.</s>CROWLEY: And your relationship with BP has been good? Do you trust them? Because you've got to know that there are a lot of people out there that think they really didn't tell us the truth about the flow rate. That they didn't tell us the truth about what safety regulations that they had or would have when they started drilling. Do you trust BP? Are they doing what they say they're doing?</s>ALLEN: When I give them direction or the federal on-scene coordinator gives them direction, we get a response. I've got Tony Hayward's personal cell phone number. If I have a problem, I call him. Some of the problems we have had that we've worked through are more logistics and coordinations issues.</s>CROWLEY: Do you trust them?</s>ALLEN: I trust Tony Hayward. When I talk to him, I get an answer.</s>CROWLEY: I want to let you listen to something that he said recently in an interview.</s>TONY HAYWARD, CEO, BP: I think the environmental impacts of this disaster is likely to have been very, very modest. It's impossible to say and we will mount as part of the aftermath, a very detailed environment assessment. But everything we can see at the moment suggests that the overall environment impacts of this will be very, very modest.</s>CROWLEY: Do you agree with that?</s>ALLEN: Well, I'm not sure when and where he said it. Obviously...</s>CROWLEY: He said it this week.</s>ALLEN: Obviously they are not modest here in Louisiana. We need to be putting all hands on deck there. And we don't want to perpetuate any kind of notion at all, whether it's BP or the United States government that this is anything less than potentially catastrophic for this country.</s>CROWLEY: Well, this is why I think people don't really trust BP, because here is the CEO of the company out there saying, well, we think the environment impact will be very modest. This was three or four days ago. There was already oil coming in on the beaches of Louisiana. So that's why I guess there is this whole feel that the administration has trusted BP. That you all in the form of the Coast Guard have trusted BP when actually you should have been much more skeptical of the things they were telling you and the things they're doing.</s>ALLEN: Yes, I wouldn't even say it's -- I wouldn't say it's trust even, Candy. We have a -- we in the Coast Guard, through our federal on-scene coordinators, Mary Landry and myself as</s>CROWLEY: And do you think that they are telling the public the truth?</s>ALLEN: Well, let me talk about the flow estimates, because I think that's really important. I've said from the start, I don't think anybody can know to a virtual certainty how much oil is coming out of that pipe down there. That's why we've empaneled a group of experts, including academia, and really qualified scientists from around the world to actually put this together. From the start we deployed resources in anticipating a catastrophic event. So I think what we need to do is get all of the information on the table and come up with a good flow estimate. I've never been comfortable with any estimate I've been given since this thing started.</s>CROWLEY: And so you don't -- you don't have a feeling that BP is deliberately underestimating this?</s>ALLEN: I don't think anybody has a handle to estimate this correctly, and I've said that from the start, Candy.</s>CROWLEY: OK. We're going to take a quick break. But we will be right back with more from Admiral Allen.