Macondo Prospect
“[the impact of oil spill in the Gulf will be] very, very modest”
—Tony Hayward, BP CEO
beneath the surface
1500 feet
what does not weather
layers of warm and cool water
::smooth cordgrass
::black needle rush
collide
April 20, 9:45 pm, 5
minutes to
osprey
egret
alligator
escape failed
deadman’s switch 11
dead
roseate spoonbill, barrier
island
deep
circulation
::beaver amid wild millet
dowitchers lesser
yellow leg
“it is not possible to
assure its success”
or any—
sea purslane
salt
heliotrope
deltaic mudflat sprawl
Macondo
Prospect (MC252) like any
illusion
a hundred others
its seedy tangle
mat-like
black
tar-oiled surf
there is no
cost to us, or the environment
conspicuous
saline marsh
(parenthetically speaking
azure tropic oiled
seabirds
fish
subsea dispersants
oil failed
domes switches pipe-
line faith
intertidal perennial
salt grass sea
turtles
shallow
blue water
trapped below the surface
one million dollars a day
running behind
‒basin, deep
water coral garden
coastal
rookeries
/grass given to sea
dead man’s switch
schedule dead
rush failed
blow-out
a shrub-like
herb with yellow flowers
preventer
keeping oil
cheap and available
passerine songbirds
needle rush
edging the marsh
or memory
this apparatus “re-
mains a new technology”
lavender wolfberry
blossoms (Iva frutescens
at margins of the marsh
sea cane long
grass
5000 feet below the surface we
“remain uncertain”
hedging our bets
doubts there is no
(assurances)
goldenrod’s small
yellow flowers
need for undue
concern
or alarm, brackish
to four feet (willowly
salt grass
glasswort
dodder
strangle-vine, strangle-
hold BP will
do all in its power to
(maximize profits) pay all
legitimate claims
(minimizing losses
culpability—
5000 feet below the surface who
could have known
knew this
hive
of nurseries bluefin
Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles
oysters shrimp brown
pelicans blue
crab
gulf “BP will
continue to promptly provide
all information necessary”
not at all
necessary
quantifying “the incident”
is difficult
or assigning blame
shrimpers oysterers fishers
Bayou Fourchon boats idling
setting boom
cleaning (dunlits
willets plovers)
oil from the beach
children and
grandchildren swim—
oil spill oil— “a
single distinct event”
minor casual subordinate, no
catastrophe
methane gas rising rapidly into the column bursting
seals barriers Halliburton’s nitrogen-
foamed cement/non-
functional pod/BOP/decision-making apparatus we—
remains unsealed
standard
operating procedure
brown pelicans
yellow-eyed
egrets
blue herons
night herons
waders and flyers
along the Gulf’s
coast
accidental
injury shredded
annular, failed
pressure tests over-
rided BP six
weeks over schedule (drilling
Plaquemines Parish
piakimin persimmon
waterandland place
targets) fed into the rig’s generators
methane forced
upward under
pressure of oil released at the site of entry
who
knew/know
no
accurate measure
pressure test
certainty:
mud‒concrete‒mud
seawater
sea—
buoyant and
labile gulf sea
loop
current
oil
corexit dispersant::
cloud
mat
plume
reach
executives “celebrating the project’s safety record” —
“a sudden catastrophic failure of cement, the casing or both”
before exploding
720 million in clean-up and
compensation to-date
7 billion in profits first
3 months 2010