Quotes

April 27, 2010
“I am going to say right up front. The BP efforts to secure the blowout preventer have not yet been successful, If we don't secure the well, yes, this will be one of the most significant oil spills in US history." Rear Admiral Mary Landry – U.S. Coast Guard

April 29, 2010
"I've asked several times over the last few days for a detailed plan in terms of a quantifiable number of people and resources that will be deployed to help clean up and protect our coast. We haven't gotten those plans yet," Bobby Jindal – Louisiana Governor

April 30, 2010
It is of grave concern, I am frightened. This is a very, very big thing. And the efforts that are going to be required to do anything about it, especially if it continues on, are just mind-boggling." David Kennedy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

"They lied to us. They came out and said it was leaking 1,000 barrels when I think they knew it was more. And they weren't proactive. As soon as it blew up, they should have started wrapping it with booms." Cade Thomas, a fishing guide in Venice

"While BP is ultimately responsible for funding the cost of response and clean-up operations, my administration will continue to use every single available resource at our disposal, including potentially the Department of Defense, to address the incident," President Barack Obama

"As it gets into the wildlife management area it is going to kill us. It's the worst-case scenario for shrimpers, oyster harvesters, crabbers — all the commercial fisherman," Brent Roy-charter boat captain, referring to Louisiana's $2.4-billion-a-year fishing industry.

May 1, 2010
"These people, we've been beaten down, disaster after disaster," They've all got a long stare in their eye," he said. "They come asking me what I think's going to happen. I ain't got no answers for them. I ain't got no answers for my investors. I ain't got no answers." Matt O'Brien of Venice, whose fledgling wholesale shrimp dock business is under threat from the spill.

"These next few days are critical. Our focus is to mitigate the damage on the coast." Bobby Jindal - Louisiana Governor

May 2, 2010
"The oil industry is constantly given free rein in Louisiana," said historian Douglas Brinkley. "It's been treated as a third world society out there in the Gulf of Mexico; it's almost laughed at by oil executives - 'You can do what you want in the Gulf.'

"We should have started the cleanup while we were still watching that rig burn," said Billy Nungesser - President, Plaquemines Parish

“And we're going to do everything in our power to protect our natural resources, compensate those who have been harmed, rebuild what has been damaged, and help this region persevere like it has done so many times before.” Barack Obama

May 3, 2010
“The sky is not falling,” said Quenton R. Dokken, a marine biologist and the executive director of the Gulf of Mexico Foundation, a conservation group in Corpus Christi, Tex. “We’ve certainly stepped in a hole and we’re going to have to work ourselves out of it, but it isn’t the end of the Gulf of Mexico.”

May 4, 2010
"It's too much oil, too fast, not to have a pretty big impact on generations of wildlife that's in the water column. Birds eating shellfish getting sick and dying, marine mammals, land mammals getting sick and dying. You have birds feeding oiled fish to their chicks, the chicks have stunted growth," Riki Ott, a toxicologist who wrote two books about the Exxon Valdez spill.

"It wasn't our accident, but we are absolutely responsible for the oil, for cleaning it up, and that's what we intend to do," BP CEO Tony Hayward

"We will absolutely be paying for the cleanup operation. There's no doubt about that," Hayward told NPR. "Where legitimate claims are made, we will be good for them."

May 5, 2010
"Oil spills are ecological events, not human health events. Themost dangerous gases that come off the hydrocarbons in crude oil, benzene and toluene, will disperse as they come up through 5,000 feet of ocean water and then into the air, she says. And as the entire event "is happening in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, they won't have much effect on people on land.” LuAnn White, a toxicologist and director of Tulane University's Center for Applied Environmental Public Health

"This is another sad milestone in a disaster unfolding in slow motion. This massive oil slick is churning around in the Gulf and emulsifying into a thick, deadly 'mousse' that will extinguish life and destroy habitats. Seabirds like the Northern Gannet and an array of marine life have already been hit and now, many more victims are now likely to succumb. We may never know the full extent of the damage to the creatures that spend their lives beneath the waves or suspended between sea and sky. Millions of birds migrate across the Gulf at this time of year, returning from their winter homes in South America.” Frank Gill, president of National Aububon Society

May 9, 2010
“I wouldn’t say it has failed yet. What I would say is what we attempted to do last night didn’t work.” Doug Suttles - BP spokesman (after the containment dome failed to stop the oil flow)

May 13, 2010
"We would much rather fight the oil," one worried fishermen told Coast Guard, Environmental Protection Agency and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration representatives.

May 16, 2010
"We have no idea where the oil that isn't reaching the surface is going," James Cowan Jr., an oceanography professor at Louisiana State University, to the Los Angeles Times. "It could go everywhere.”

May 18, 2010
BP CEO Tony Hayward told Britain's Sky News on Tuesday morning that he didn't think the spill would seriously hurt the Gulf ecosystem. "Everything we can see at the moment suggests that the overall environmental impact will be very, very modest," he said.

"We are nowhere close to the finish line, oil has already been found along 29 miles of the state's coast Oil continues to pour into the gulf and hit our shores." Bobby Jindal – Louisiana Governor

May 19, 2010
"In the use of dispersants we are faced with environmental trade-offs," acknowledged Environmental Protection Agency head Lisa Jackson at a Senate hearing Tuesday. She noted, "I'm amazed by how little science there is on [these chemicals]."

"The heavy oil is here. This was the day everybody was worried about, everybody was concerned about. That day is here, that heavy oil is in the marshes. This was not the weathered, the emulsified oil,it wasn't tar balls. This wasn't sheen. ... This is oil that is going to be very, very difficult for them to clean up. More than 30 miles of the coastline has been oiled " Bobby Jindal - Louisiana Governor

May 21, 2010

"It's so sad when you look around here and you just think of what was here, what's happening to it now and what's gonna happen to it," says P.J. Hahn, the director of the Parish Coastal Zone Management Department. "Unless we stop that oil out there, it's just going to continue to keep coming in here and wipe out everything we have. ... I think we're just starting to see the first wave of what's really coming — and what's really coming I think is going to be devastating."


May 22, 2010

"Oil in the marshes is the worst-case scenario," said Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the head of the federal effort to contain and clean up the spill.

"I'm tired of being nice. I'm tired of working as a team," Billy Nungesser - president of Plaquemines Parish

"The government should have stepped in and not just taken BP's word," declared Wayne Stone of Marathon, Florida, an avid diver who worries about the spill's effect on the ecosystem.

"Work to disperse and burn the oil offshore was making good progress. Our near-shore activities were also quite successful yesterday. . . . We're quite fortunate; we have only had oil show up on seven locations onshore." Doug Suttles – BP Spokesman

"They ought to all lose their jobs, because none of them gives a rat's ass about this marsh," said Nungesser. "Something stinks here. It was too good of a plan (building of sand berms). Everybody was on board and all they did was take four or five days to rip it apart. And, I'm sorry Coast Guard, you got B.S. excuses. There was nothing you told me that's a reason we don't have dredges out there pumping today."


May 23, 2010
"We are 33 days into this effort, and deadline after deadline has been missed. If we find they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing, we'll push them out of the way appropriately." Ken Salazar – Secretary of the Interior

"As we talk, a total of more than 65 miles of our shoreline now has been oiled," Bobby Jindal – Louisiana Governor

“This is an absolute tragedy, where are the leaders in the Corps? In the Coast Guard? In BP? All we’ve heard from them is excuses. I am so disappointed in these agencies.” Billy Nungesser – President of Plaquemines Parish

“The lesson learned by Katrina, Rita, and later, Gustav and Ike, is if we wait, we will die. I don’t have a crystal ball, but if I were a betting man I’d bet the plan was to let us die, then come back and do $75 million worth of cleanup.” Craig Taffaro – President of St. Bernard Parish

“This is the danger of not acting. We’re fighting a war here against this oil, and we’re going to do everything it takes to protect our coasts.” Bobby Jindal – Louisiana Governor

May 24, 2010
"We failed at preventing the spill. Now, we're failing in the response simply because we'd never gotten ready. Nobody has invested in these technologies." Richard Charter, oil spill expert for conservation group Defenders of Wildlife

"It is clear we don't have the resources we need to protect our coast. We need more boom, more skimmers, more vacuums, more jack-up barges that are still in short supply. Let's be clear: Every day that this oil sits is one more day that more of our marsh dies." Bobby Jindal – Louisiana Governor

“BP in my mind no longer stands for British Petroleum - it stands for Beyond Patience. People have been waiting 34 days for British Petroleum to cap this well and stop the damage that’s happening across the Gulf of Mexico What we need to tell BP, is excuses don’t count anymore. You caused this mess, now stop the damage and clean up the mess. It’s your responsibility.” Sen. Richard Durbin

May 26, 2010
"There's definitely some confusion about who's in charge," says G. Paul Kemp, a coastal ecologist with the National Audubon Society. "We hear from shrimpers that they're under contract (to help) but they're not, they don't know what they're supposed to be doing or whether they're going to be doing anything, and this is at a time when it would seem we need pretty much everybody working round the clock on this."

"The Obama administration's response is "dysfunctional, there's no chain of command, no one's in charge," Billy Nungesser - President Plaquemines Parish

"We have yet to see a plan from the Coast Guard, a plan from BP, a plan to keep it from coming in, a plan to pick it up," Billy Nungesser said of the oil. “"There's no wildlife in Pass a Loutre. It's all dead”

May 27, 2010
“National Guard is at Port Fouchon hauling sand to the beach” call into WWL radio

"BP is not the equal of the United States government. This president needs to tell BP 'I'm your daddy, I'm in charge, you're going to do what we say. You're a multinational company that is greedy and you may be guilty of criminal activity.' It's time that we understand, BP does not wish this thing well. They have been negligent. They need to whip out their checkbook and start moving into action and the president needs to push them." James Carville - American political consultant

“Fishermen near the spill are getting sick from the working on the cleanup, yet BP is assuring them they don't need respirators or other special protection from the crude oil, strong hydrocarbon vapors, or chemical dispersants.” Riki Ott, a toxicologist who wrote two books about the Exxon Valdez spill.