WASHINGTON — In any Hollywood treatment of the environmental calamity unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, Ben Affleck would ride down to the ocean floor and personally plug the oil gusher after several death-defying failures, then triumphantly return to the sea’s surface to be reunited with his estranged wife.
But this is real life, and man’s utter uselessness in the face of the mighty forces of nature has been depressingly obvious for weeks.
Nonetheless, Hollywood film director James Cameron was in Washington on Tuesday to meet with scientists from the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal officials about the millions of barrels of crude that have spewed unhindered from a BP well into the Gulf of Mexico despite fruitless attempts to stop it.
The brainstorming session was heavily technical and attended for the most part by marine biologists, engineers and physicists, said a source familiar with the meeting.
Cameron was in the company of deep-ocean expert Phil Nuytten, president of the Vancouver-based Nuytco Research, considered a world leader in undersea technology.
“Today’s meeting is part of the federal government’s ongoing efforts to hear from stakeholders, scientists and experts from academia, government and the private sector as we continue to respond to the BP oil spill,” the EPA and other federal agencies said in a statement.
The agencies participated in the “listening session as these stakeholders shared ideas about possible efforts to mitigate the BP spill’s impact on the Gulf region.”
There was no mention of the Oscar-winning director of Titanic and Avatar by name, but the source said even a submarine buff like Cameron would have likely been in over his head given the highly complex and technical nature of the discussions.
Cameron, 55, born in the northern Ontario town of Kapuskasing, is considered an expert on underwater filming and remote vehicle technologies.
Nuytten is a diving pioneer who invented a patented rotary joint technology for use in his company’s state-of-the-art diving suit called the Newtsuit, as well as an articulated mating skirt used for submarine rescue.
As Cameron and Nuytten met with U.S. officials at the EPA building, President Barack Obama was a few blocks away, promising a “full and vigorous accounting” of the causes of the spill, calling it “the greatest environmental disaster of its kind in our nation’s history.”
Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, announced in New Orleans that the government has launched a criminal probe into the spill.
Federal agencies, including the FBI, are participating in the investigation and “if we find evidence of illegal behaviour, we will be forceful in our response,” Holder said after meeting with state and federal prosecutors.
Obama told the leaders of a new commission into the spill that they have free reign to investigate thoroughly.
“They have my full support to follow the facts wherever they may lead, without fear or favour,” Obama said in the White House Rose Garden after meeting with the co-chairmen of the commission, former Florida senator and governor Bob Graham and former EPA administrator William Reilly.
After failing to plug the leak with mud late last week, BP is now attempting to cut the leaking pipe and seal it with a tightly placed cap. The company said their latest attempt could staunch the spewing oil within a day.
Two relief drills are also being dug in the Gulf of Mexico, but they aren’t scheduled to be completed until August, meaning millions more barrels of crude will continue to spew into the sea and wreak unprecedented havoc on the region’s environment and economy if the well is not capped before then.
Obama also announced that manpower would be tripled in the areas where oil has already washed ashore or is expected to within 24 hours.
Cameron is far from the first Hollywood celebrity to become active in the aftermath of a disaster. Sean Penn famously travelled to New Orleans to help in rescue operations following hurricane Katrina, and George Clooney’s latest humanitarian work has involved raising funds for the Haiti earthquake earlier this year.