Oil spill panel chiefs say low oil flow estimates were harmful

The co-chairmen of the White House-created panel probing the BP oil spill said Monday that low-balled estimates of the gusher’s size in the early days of the catastrophe hindered the response and bred public skepticism.

“I would assume that it is common sense that a flow rate will determine how many skimmers you think you need, how many thousand feet of boom you bring into the area, what you are going to do with respect to dispersants,” said William Reilly, the co-chair of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling.

“It is not entirely clear to me how it could be that the flow rate did not affect the response,” added Reilly. Reilly – a Republican who headed EPA under President George H.W. Bush – spoke to reporters during a break in the commission’s hearing in Washington.

His remarks to reporters came after National Incident Commander Thad Allen, a retired Coast Guard admiral, brushed aside the impact of the low initial estimates after the April 20 well blowout and explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig.

Federal officials and BP initially provided estimates that 1,000 barrels per day were flowing from the well but shortly revised them to 5,000 barrels per day.

But those initial figures soon came under attack from outside scientists, and a federal task force convened – called the Flow Rate Technical Group – that included outside experts offered a series of escalating estimates in the subsequent months.

In August, the federal team said 62,000 barrels was escaping from the well at the beginning of the spill, falling to 53,000 by the time the well was finally capped in mid-July.

Former Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), the other co-chair of the commission, said that while the low early estimates may not have affected the specific Coast Guard response, they informed the initial unsuccessful efforts by BP, overseen by federal officials, to cap the well.

“I think it did have an impact ... on the issue of the containment technology,” Graham told reporters. Graham also said that the inaccurate initial information “set a context for public skepticism about future information,” such as the federal estimate in August that roughly 75 percent of the oil had been burned, skimmed, captured, dissolved or dispersed.