I think the question is not can we turn off the oil but why have we not.
Are you suggesting they can turn it off? Seriously?
I am not dismissing your above statement, but would ask you to expand on what information you have that supports your position they can turn this off anytime they want?
This thread is a discussion on the what if they cannot turn it off , what changes are we going to see long term to our ecology.
However If you have information that they can turn it off anytime they want , I would like to read it.
Until information can be provided they can turn it off and operating on the premise they cannot , I suspect enormous
changes in our ocean and what we will be able to eat or not eat.
I know a few people that work in the field. there are some things that can be done with submersibles (we went to the titanic to pick up dinner plates) the same subs can be used to:
A Use epoxy to attach a new pipe to the broken section with a valve on it. Once the epoxy is set close the valve.
B Unbolt the colar and rebolt a new colar with the same sub.
C weld a pipe to the colar with a valve.
D There are replacement parts that were a 12 week lead time (valves and tools) that were not ordered cause they thought the heavy mud would work.
Now those parts are ordered.
I know what you are thinking this is so deep that the human submersibles can not work at this depth. NOPE the titanic is about 2,000 feet deeper and the Japaneese have a sub that can go almost double this depth.
The Navy has three or more of these subs. Why are they not being flown to the gulf to repair the broken pipe?
Again if this were not about creating havoc why is the cosat guard not allowing skimmers to go out.
Last report from FLA was they had 2,000 boats equiped with skimmers. Only 10% were being allowed out.
There are sea booms that were flown in from The UAE (united Arab Emerites) that can handle the currents and the waves in the gulf that are on land, and have been for over a month. The booms were flown here on day 12 to protect Mississippi.
There is a comittee that is managing the spill and if one member of the comitee does not like the idea they can veto it and nothing gets done.
This whole operation is to create a eco disaster in order to stop all off shore drilling.
There was a govenment plan that called for urning the oil up to day 5 and that was not done.
Same plan said to use dispursants that would break up the oil.
Same plan said if burning was not an option due to weather or sea conditions the gulf would break up the spill at 1.5 times this rate and it would not reach shore.
So no burn, no dispursants, and it still reached shore.
And Now they are not allowing the Sand Islands to be build or expanded to protect the gulf.
If you wanted a disaster how could you manage it better?
Either this administration wants this disaster or it is completely in compitant. I think both.