Adm. Allen: James Cameron Still Not Welcome to Film BP Oil Spill

Filmmaker James Cameron has been all over the TV talking about how he has been denied access to film the BP Oil Spill, despite the fact that the only images of the leak that are currently available are “crime scene video done by the criminal.” At today’s White House briefing, I took Cameron’s case directly to National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen, asking him if having documentation from a source other than BP might be worth a little risk.

Transcript:

Tommy Christopher:    My second question — director James Cameron says he offered to help film the site, the disaster site, and BP told him no. And what he says is that currently the video stream we have, the only video we have, images of the actual leak, are controlled by what he characterizes as the “criminals.” Doesn’t he have a point that maybe it’s worth some risk to have someone other than BP provide images of that leak?

ADMIRAL ALLEN: I know he met with Lisa Jackson and some of our folks who were in the room. I would just make this observation — and I haven’t talked to Mr. Cameron myself. All the video that’s coming out of that operation right now, from the remotely operated vehicles, is available, okay? And we’ve made that — actually, there was some concern when we started the top kill process that it might put too much pressure on the operators, and BP actually wanted to have a delayed broadcast to remove that risk in the control room. And it was decided, after a conversation between myself and Tony Hayward, that the need for transparency overwhelmed whatever additional risk might be created by that.

So — and the other thing you have to understand is they’re conducting what they would call simops — what the industry would call simultaneous operations. Within about a one square mile area around that wellhead and the riser pipe and everything else, at any particular time you could have between 14 and 20 ROVs operating down there. The need to de-conflict those for safety reasons is a valid one.

When we were using the riser insertion tool, if you remember, when we started that they had to stop and reinsert it. The reason they had to do that was the ROVs that were doing the subsea dispersant application and the ROVs that were working the insertion tube actually bumped into each other, and it caused the tube to be dislodged and they had to do it again. So there’s an issue about density and the amount of ROVs you can bring down there.

And I appreciate Mr. Cameron’s comments, but I believe trying to put one more ROV down there might actually increase the risk to the operation, and there are a number of ROVs operating down there.

Of course, there is some risk, but Cameron is not just an expert in filming underwater, he’s a pioneer. His huge-budget films The Abyss and Titanic, and his documentary Ghosts of the Abyss, doubled as extensive R&D for underwater cinematography. As Admiral Allen said, it would be “one more ROV,” but one piloted by someone who filmed inside the wreck of the Titanic.

I also asked Admiral Allen about the directive he spoke about on This Week, to allow uninhibited access to BP Oil Spill disaster sites. There have been reports of journalists being denied access to these sites for weeks now, and I wanted to know what was going to happen to BP because of it.

Transcript:

Tommy Christopher:    All right. First, you said over the weekend on “This Week” that you’ve issued an order that journalists are to have unfettered access to the disaster sites. What I want to know is, what’s going to happen — what are you going to do to BP for preventing journalists from getting access to these sites both prior to now and going forward?

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Well, if we have to we can issue an administrative order from the federal on-scene coordinator. If they violate that, there’s civil and criminal statutes associated with it. But we haven’t issued an order like that. I put out a general guidance that there are only two reasons that media should be prohibited from an area — if it’s a security reason or a safety reason because of personal protective equipment. Other than that, we are putting no restrictions on access.

Now, we can’t tell somebody to talk to somebody if they don’t want to. But my policy is, unless it’s a security or safety reason, there is no restriction on access.

Tommy Christopher: Is that system nimble enough? I mean, if BP calculates that keeping journalists away from oily birds is more viable than whatever your penalty is going to be down the road –

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Well, I guess somebody would have to give me the specifics of an incident and we’ll go take a look at it.

Tommy Christopher: If I want to take a picture of an oily bird and they told me to go away –

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Well, it’s hypothetical. If you give me the facts, I’ll react to them and tell you what we would do or can do.

Savannah Guthrie:    BP employees seem to be under the impression they can’t talk, if you talk to them down there — they’re not permitted.

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Well, we’ll follow up with — I’ll have a call with Tony Hayward.

I asked about penalties for this sort of thing a few weeks ago, and nobody knew then, either. Admiral Allen seems entirely too confident that he won’t be needing them.

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