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Washington PostStupak: Oil well's blowout preventer had leaks, dead battery, design flaws
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 12, 2010; 1:53 PM
A senior House Democrat said that the blowout preventer that failed to stop an oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico had a dead battery in its control pod, leaks in its hydraulic system, a "useless" test version of one of the devices that was supposed to close the flow of oil and a cutting tool that wasn't strong enough to shear through joints that made up 10 percent of the drill pipe.
In a devastating review of the blowout preventer that BP said was supposed to be "fail-safe," Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said in a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday that the device was anything but fail-safe.
Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) pressed BP on why it had assured regulators in its exploration plan that it could deal with a spill 50 times larger than the current one when the current one seems to have defied control technology. "The American people expect you to have a response comparable to the Apollo project, not 'Project Runway,' " Markey said.
Stupak said that the committee investigators had also uncovered a document prepared in 2001 by the drilling rig operator Transocean that said there were 260 "failure modes" that could require removal of the blowout preventer.
"How can a device that has 260 failure modes be considered fail-safe?" Stupak said.
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