WASTELAND BAIT & TACKLE / James McMurtry

Junk Shot or Money Shot? BP Fiddles While Rome Burns

By James McMurtry

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - BP conceded Thursday that more oil than it estimated is gushing into the Gulf of Mexico as heavy crude washed into Louisiana's wetlands for the first time, feeding worries and uncertainty about the massive monthlong spill.

Let's get something clear. BP knew, from the beginning, exactly how much oil that blowout was capable of spilling. BP is a modern oil company. Modern oil companies conduct extensive seismographic tests before committing the resources to actually drill. They can't afford a dry hole under a mile of water. They knew what was down there before they drilled the well. They had already successfully drilled several wells in that field and they know what each well produces.

Equally troubling, is that all of BP's efforts since the accident have been geared not towards plugging the leak, but rather towards recovering as much oil as possible. They talk of maybe trying a "junk shot", filling the non-functional blowout preventer with golf balls or old tires, but they haven't tried it. Perhaps they're afraid the junk shot could make matters worse, a valid fear. But it is interesting that the only procedures BP has actually tried have involved tankers. The recovery boxes froze up and failed before the oil reached the tanker. Now they've managed to insert a skinny pipe into the fat pipe that's leaking and siphon off a fraction of the oil. I guess they figure that's better than nothing. Meanwhile, the livelihoods of people who've worked the Gulf for generations are being ruined as BP officials stall and evade in a vain quest to save face and profit.

Republicans are trying to lay blame on Obama. The "drill baby drill" crowd says Obama should have imposed tighter regulations on offshore drilling. Imagine the shit storm they'd have kicked up if he had tried such a thing before the spill.

Singer-songwriter James McMurtry lives in Austin, Texas. When he's not touring, you can see him at the Continental Club every Wednesday, ‘round about midnight. Full details at his official website. His latest album, Live In Europe, was released last year on Lightning Rod Records - read the Blurt review here.