Warning Signs of Oil Spill Disaster
COOPER: During the breaks, we've been seeing some remarkable live pictures from the BP wellhead. I just want to show them to you and try to explain a little bit of what we understand is going on. This is a shot of one of those diamond-tipped circular saws. It appears to be trimming the edges of the riser pipe. Those edges were left ragged by the giant pair of shears that you saw earlier on the program. The idea is to make the edges clean enough to attach a collection cap. Here's another angle. You can clearly see the down side, of course, to all this. A freshly-cut pipe lets a lot more oil flow. So until they can actually cap it off, the spill is actually doing more damage than before the cut. The stakes are incredibly high. This may not work. David Mattingly joins me now with the latest. We talked to Billy Nungesser. He said in his gut he thinks this is going to go until August.</s>DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Everything that you've experienced so far from this, for anyone who lives here, has been failure or lowered expectations. It doesn't help anyone to expect this to work, because they think this -- they're going to be dealing with this oil no matter what for every day until that well is capped in August.</s>COOPER: Do we know when will you know the results of this operation?</s>MATTINGLY: We could see them put -- attempting to put a cap on sometime tomorrow. It could be that early. We won't know exactly how much oil they're collecting right away. Again, these are just collection systems, and they're not going to be stopping all the oil. So we're going to be seeing some oil, a fraction of that oil, possibly. So what are we talking about; 1,000 gallons, 2,000 gallons a day? We just don't know.</s>COOPER: And the idea of this is that essentially, it's sucking up the oil. I mean, oil will still be coming out. They're just hoping this cap will be able to suck it up to waiting barges on shore. Correct?</s>MATTINGLY: Right. This is like the grandchild of that big containment dome they started a couple of weeks ago that completely failed. This is smaller. They've learned from that mistake. And this is just going to be siphoning that oil that's billowing out of that pipe, taking it to a ship on the top where they're going to be burning up the natural gas and carting away the oil.</s>COOPER: You've been covering this for weeks now. Does anything surprise you? I mean, what over the last couple of days has sort of caught your attention and surprised you?</s>MATTINGLY: You asked me what surprises me. I've stopped being surprised, because I think surprise also goes hand-in-hand with disappointment. And there's been a lot of disappointment along the way with this. This siphoning tube that they have that was collecting oil from the large leak they had down there was really under-performing. It was still -- there was still a big cloud of oil billowing out of that. The containment domes they created didn't work. The big hope was to stop the oil with the "top kill". That didn't work. And you see the sense of defeat, the sense of resignation just eating away at people here with every failure that comes along. And no one is getting their hopes up to see what happens here because even under the best circumstances, there's still going to be oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico until this well is capped in August.</s>COOPER: Right. And that's what people say the August figure is. That's basically two relief wells that are being dug now, but they won't be finished, we're told by BP, until August.</s>MATTINGLY: Right. BP said, "We're going to drill a relief well. We're going to try and intersect where that well is leaking." And then the U.S. government stepped in and said, "No, you're going to drill two of them, in case the first one doesn't work."</s>COOPER: There was talk of that nuclear option. Was that just talk? Or did anyone --</s>MATTINGLY: I haven't heard anyone in any serious position talking about that, because the idea is you've got a hole in the ground that's leaking oil. Why do something to make the hole bigger?</s>COOPER: Right. Right. Who know what the results of that would be? David Mattingly appreciate the reporting as always. We told you earlier that the Justice Department has now opened up a criminal investigation to the oil spill. That occurred today. You can be sure federal prosecutors will want to get their hands on internal BP documents, especially the papers about safety issues on the rig. The story of what happened in the weeks and days and even hours before this rig -- the explosion is only just now starting to be revealed. Those documents do -- the ones that we've seen so far do reveal warning signs. The question, of course, were the warning signs ignored? What was the response to them? Tonight, "Keeping Them Honest," Joe Johns.</s>JOHNS (voice-over): Internal BP documents obtained by congressional investigators show the warning signs of an impending disaster began well before fluid started leaping uncontrolled from the well's blowout preventer, just hours before the explosion. In fact, the documents say BP was dealing with well-control issues as far back as March 10 when a BP official wrote an e-mail to the MMS in New Orleans reporting, "We're in the midst of a well control situation," and went on to explain plans for dealing with the problem. What troubles a lot of people is that BP apparently did not stop to assess the situation.</s>MARK HAFLE, BP SENIOR DRILLING ENGINEER: No one believed that there was going to be a safety issue with bumping that</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you all did discuss your concerns, right?</s>HAFLE: Absolutely.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you went ahead and proceeded with the job anyway?</s>HAFLE: All the risks had been addressed. All the concerns had been addressed.</s>JOHNS: But an expert on wells and drilling who has reviewed the document said putting on the brakes is what BP should have done.</s>GREG MCCORMACK, PETROLEUM EXTENSION SERVICE: It's standard operating procedure when you have a problem, to stop whatever you're doing and resolve the problem before you move on to the next step.</s>JOHNS: BP did not respond to CNN inquiries for this story. But on ABC over the weekend, a BP executive said the answers about well control issues in March will have to come from investigators.</s>ROBERT DUDLEY, BP MANAGING DIRECTOR: There were issues of well control, signs out there, and there are strict procedures that are written to rig owners to walk through well control. That's what the investigation will take minute by minute and investigate that.</s>JOHNS: Apparently, this wasn't the only time BP had ignored or departed from standard practices. One unsigned document released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee shows that in May of last year, someone at BP asked for a dispensation or departure from BP's own rule book on drilling and well operations policy. (on camera): One month later, the issue was the well casing. That is the pipe that keeps the well-hole open. In June of 2009, according to the "New York Times", BP engineers were expressing concerns that the metal casing the company wanted to use might collapse under high pressure. The paper reports that BP went ahead with the casing only after getting special permission, because it violated the company's own safety policies. (voice-over): Why anybody would do that is a mystery. Experts we've spoken with dismissed the idea that the company was choosing profit over safety because they argue everybody in the business knows the down side to doing that is potential disaster.</s>MCCORMACK: There definitely is a profit motive or they wouldn't be drilling for oil, and there's always a pressure, a constant pressure on a drill rig to drill faster. But there's also the same pressure to deal safer. It's a dangerous business. And if you don't drill safer, then the profit goes away.</s>JOHNS: A costly accident for sure. BP has only begun to feel the financial pain. Joe Johns, CNN, Washington.</s>COOPER: Hey, that's it for 360. Thanks for watching. "LARRY KING" starts now. I'll see you tomorrow night from the Gulf.