Three Cheers for Thad Allen
Walter Rhett
July 20, 2010
How Admiral Thad Allen's command of logic trumped BP's lack of science.
Three cheers for Thad Allen! The National Incident Commander who heads the Deepwater Horizon Unified Command, the national response team for the Gulf disaster caused by the blow out of the BP oil well, in these times of distress, has set his feet in a broad place.
Cheers? Thad Allen has been much maligned. His judgment has been questioned, his leadership summarily found insufficient or deficient; his contributions failing to draw raves or high notice. To many, he is a spokesman, a straw figure without power or impact, a buffer for BP and Obama--a point man without portfolio.
This image and assessment is reinforced by the media drumbeat. Nightly, a steady line of individual citizens and leaders have pricked the response team's short comings: waiting weeks for checks, the slow approval of requests for equipment, absent progress on cleaning the beaches and marshlands, the failure to contain the spill offshore, confusion in deploying ships and equipment across five states, from Texas to Florida. The moratorium on off shore well operations, costing hundreds of jobs, has also fueled anger and despair.
And the most grating of these impressions is the perceived acquiescing and kowtowing to BP's stuttering attempts to cover up its damages while trying to showcase meager efforts. BP was secretive, often transparently staged clean-up efforts or simply didn't show up for weeks, and is now trumpeting its "get-it-right" commitment in television commercials, which nobody trusts. Early on, Allen's own failure to be informed about BP actions flunked an important test and diminished public confidence in his leadership. His not knowing what was going on in the team he is responsible for set an unacceptable precedent.
Peppered by a Thousand Cuts
So why cheer for a man who has been hammered repeatedly, publicly nailed as inept, and peppered by a thousand cuts? Who is best known in the media as "the retired Admiral," or "the government's point man on the scene?"
Because at the moment of supreme importance for resolving the crisis, the much maligned director of the national response team for the Deepwater Horizon disaster made the right call.
And like much of his good work, it went unnoticed.
The Deepwater Horizon disaster has been a human tragedy. It's a political farce, a telling example of corporate greed, a case study of the difficulties of running and setting up an large, multi-state impromptu operation comprised of organizations with their own agendas, blind spots and oppositional defiance.
But at its heart and soul, the Deepwater Horizon disaster is a science story. Unfortunately the science reporting about the story has been dismal. The working science of the disaster is difficult to understand and rewrite. And the scientific strands of the story spin out in many different directions and involve many different disciplines-engineering, biology, economics, ecology, marine science, physics, for example.
The technical science has been sacrificed for shocking snap shots of fouled beaches and dead fowl. Spoken controversy, of which there has been plenty, has focused on politics, seldom on the important debates but the science. The emphasis on politics and the absence of science led to rampant speculation, suspicious second guessing, and fed the anger and cynicism about the response efforts. The fear is visceral: oil ingested or inhaled can damage red blood cells, cause brain lesions, pneumonia, kidney damage, stress and death.
The Right Call
But Wednesday, July 14, 2010, Thad Allen got the science right and issued his most important command. He order the planned cap seal installation and well integrity tests halted for 24 hours. The call took guts. It was seen by many as another example of being overly cautious, bureaucratic, prodding, and informed by fear. In reality, this single bold call will stand with one of the great decisions of American leadership in war or peace.
Admiral Allen in his typical fashion says those sitting around the table decided together, but the final call was his. His delay of the testing procedures sent a clear message: Admiral Allen's stand down actually put the team on alert; he intervened at the right time to shake-up business-as-usual. It brought home the crucial importance of the next series of steps and tests.
Thad Allen's decision has been overshadowed by a major breakthrough that followed on its heels: the new cap seal now in place, when its hydraulic rams were activated at 3:25 pm/EDT, July 15, completely stopped the flow of oil into the Gulf. For the first time in weeks, the ROV videos show only still waters. The dark flume of oil and gas sprouting and billowing a mile under the sea has ceased. There is a feeling of uneasy relief.
At the July 14 evening briefing and again, at the July 15, 2010 morning briefing, Allen explained the critical importance the delay and the well integrity tests conducted over 48 hours when the cap is in place.
"The reason we took the pause was to consider seismic, acoustic, sonar, and visual inspections. We will learn a lot from the well integrity test about the ability of the well to hold pressure, low or high. This is very instructive for how we are going to penetrate the well. It helps determine the amount of mud, the weight of mud, and how they might ultimately plug the well with cement.
"To conduct the kill itself we will have empirical pressure readings and understand to a greater certainty the condition of the well bore."
What Allen describes next in the briefing (posted at C-SPAN, http://bit.ly/9FXOfO+) is the most sensitive and important part of the preparations to successfully kill Deepwater Horizon (DH). Despite the success of the sealing cap in containing the oil, in response to a press question, Allen asserted: "Make no mistake: the #1 goal is to shut in the well kill it and stop it at the source."
The Critical Step
Why are the pressure tests for well integrity vitally important? The pressure at the top of the well becomes the back pressure when the relief well is connected to the HD shaft and the mud inserted. The drilling mud stops the oil, interpreting its flow 13,000 feet below the ocean floor. The back pressure holds the drilling mud in place and keeps it from flowing up/rising to the top. Once the flow stops, the concrete plugs that will finally seal the well can be inserted. Once in place, the concrete plugs kill it.
The top pressure is absolutely vital to knowing the amount and density of mud to pump into the DH well shaft. It also effects the rate to feed mud into the HD shaft. The top pressure also affects the composition of the concrete used to plug the well. The mud is the surgeon's scalp: a detailed reading of well head pressure is necessary to know when, where and how deep to cut.
Allen's 24 hour suspension of the cap installation signaled to all involved the seriousness of the tests and next steps. At this juncture, the synergy produced by installing the cap seal would partially direct and improve the quality of the moves that came after. Allen avoided rushing forward on unsound and non-scientific judgments. His leadership and his decision made certain best practices would be applied.
The pressure at the top is a key to what happens later, down below, at 13,000 feet. And the key to knowing what is happening at the top was double checked, careful, methodical planned and executed.
The final seal of the well will involve a static balance of mud between the oil gushing up from the reservoir and the oil in the well shaft above. The pressure from both sides, above and below, holds the mud in place.
Allen noted the "only reason to terminate the test would be a very low pressure indicate oil would be being released out into the well bore," and today (July 16) BP reports top pressure readings are in the gray zone. While not announcing specifics, the team had hoped for stronger readings from the sensors around 8,000 pounds for square inch (psi). The pressure at the reservoir level beneath the ocean floor is thought to be 11,000 psi. [writer's note: As of the posting, the tests have read only 6,700 psi, but the graph of the increase is consistent with well integrity.]
Why did it take 85 days to get the sealing cap assembly in place? Admiral Allen: "It had to be designed, built, tested, and moved into place. The systems integration testing was extensive; this is a custom built stack, and actually simulations of its installation were done, simulations of bolting it into place."
And using a schematic drawing to illustrate the hydraulic leak that required the "entire choke assembly removed and replaced," Allen explained a further delay.
The sealing cap assembly is designed to provide "redundant capacity" for containing the oil bilge. Either through the cap itself shutting off the well, or though four lines that can be hooked to the unit to gather up to 80,000 barrels a day, the well can be effectively contained until it is killed.
The sealing cap, Allen explained, is really "a mini blow out preventer" with a special fitted cap to tightly seal the riser pipe of the Deepwater Horizon well. But Allen emphasized "consistent low pressure readings could indicate that pockets of oil are breaching the well's casing and being forced out on sea floor." [Again, while the pressure readings are low, this does not seem to be the case.]
The dangers to finishing the job now lie in the weather conditions. A hurricane in the Gulf would shut down the containment efforts and kill progress.
Science and the Press
At the briefings, Allen had more good news: "the relief well only is only 4 or 5 feet from Deepwater Horizon (DH) well bore, but it still needs to be drilled down another 100 feet." When it is completed the relief well must hit the DH well shaft which is only seven inches in diameter."
During the well integrity tests, the relief shaft is filled with mud to prevent damage to the relief shaft if the DH shaft is unstable.
The July 15 press briefing was instructive: even after Allen explained the tests, their purpose and why this data was vital to the kill operation, it was clear from follow-up questions that many reporters did not understand his explanation! The science was hard for many to grasp. Several were still asking, bewildered, is the capping stack the solution?
Answer: No. "Its an intermediate step, pending the finishing of the relief wells and plugging the hole."
And so the next questioner began with, "sorry, but I'm a little confused. . ." and asked almost the same thing.
In another case, after answering an question with fluid technical proficiency, Allen looked at a reporter, and noting her body language, asked if his answer was, "Responsive?" Without speaking, the reporter just nodded.
All of the work on the well-the collection of its flow, the drilling of the relief wells, the transport of materials and equipment is taking place in "two square miles of ocean." It's crowded with ships, as many as 65 every day; its nickname is simply the city.
The problem with modern media is that it really acts as a filter to separate you from your own impressions-media substitutes its eyes and ears and translations for your firsthand, direct experience. Only C-SPAN, the public affairs network has shown the Allen briefings unfiltered and toured the command center in Houma, Louisiana.
Thad Allen's Background
Thad Allen is a baby boomer, born in January, 1949 in Tucson, Arizona. He spent 39 years in the Coast Guard, becoming the Coast Guard's 23 Commandant in 2006 and retiring in July, 2010. He has helped manage responses to other national disasters. He directed the federal response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the Gulf, before becoming Commandant.
His father was a Chief Damage Controlman in the Coast Guard and a veteran of World War II. Allen attended the US Coast guard Academy in New London CT, played football, and graduated from MIT's Sloan School of Management with a Master's degree in Management where he was a Sloan fellow, a special program for high achieving managers. He also earned a Master's in Public Administration from George Washington University, in Washington, DC.
Allen's first assignment as a flag officer was as Commander of the Seventh Coast Guard District. He directed all operations in the Southeastern United States and Caribbean. Following that assignment he served as Commander, Atlantic Area and U.S. Maritime Defense Zone Atlantic. In this capacity he oversaw all Coast Guard operations on the U.S. East Coast, Gulf Coast, and Great Lakes in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
He is an expert marksman.
Executive Summary
I, for one, think that Admiral Thad Allen has done an excellent job. He listens well, is even tempered, consistent, highly energetic, a quick study, well spoken, and honest without hype or despair. He is caring, committed, and works to the finish. He is not touchy about criticism or snippy. He has exceptional insight and has absorbed a whole range of technical and science issues with efficiency. I'm deeply disappointed that some have labeled him without cause and smeared him with ridicule. Let them walk in his shoes. If there are problems, they lie in the middle where too many wild cards think they are chiefs and are issuing directives on their own, under the cover of the disaster, and not following the orders from the top, or from BP acting like a loose canon.But when it counted, Admiral Allen tightened up.
Writer's note: Admiral Allen has issued a statement saying that after well integrity tests are completed, containment will immediately begin, bringing the oil to the surface through pipes and lines connected to surface vessels as had been done previously. The re-connections will result in oil released into the Gulf. The next major problem is how to recycle the collected oil. The ongoing problem is cleaning up the spill.]
Thanks for reading! /wr. Stir the Perlo, leave a comment.
All photos used as government works or fair use; or from Sky Truth's photostream on flickr, used under creative commons license.
Three cheers for Thad Allen! The National Incident Commander who heads the Deepwater Horizon Unified Command, the national response team for the Gulf disaster caused by the blow out of the BP oil well, in these times of distress, has set his feet in a broad place.
Cheers? Thad Allen has been much maligned. His judgment has been questioned, his leadership summarily found insufficient or deficient; his contributions failing to draw raves or high notice. To many, he is a spokesman, a straw figure without power or impact, a buffer for BP and Obama--a point man without portfolio.
This image and assessment is reinforced by the media drumbeat. Nightly, a steady line of individual citizens and leaders have pricked the response team's short comings: waiting weeks for checks, the slow approval of requests for equipment, absent progress on cleaning the beaches and marshlands, the failure to contain the spill offshore, confusion in deploying ships and equipment across five states, from Texas to Florida. The moratorium on off shore well operations, costing hundreds of jobs, has also fueled anger and despair.
And the most grating of these impressions is the perceived acquiescing and kowtowing to BP's stuttering attempts to cover up its damages while trying to showcase meager efforts. BP was secretive, often transparently staged clean-up efforts or simply didn't show up for weeks, and is now trumpeting its "get-it-right" commitment in television commercials, which nobody trusts. Early on, Allen's own failure to be informed about BP actions flunked an important test and diminished public confidence in his leadership. His not knowing what was going on in the team he is responsible for set an unacceptable precedent.
Peppered by a Thousand Cuts
So why cheer for a man who has been hammered repeatedly, publicly nailed as inept, and peppered by a thousand cuts? Who is best known in the media as "the retired Admiral," or "the government's point man on the scene?"
Because at the moment of supreme importance for resolving the crisis, the much maligned director of the national response team for the Deepwater Horizon disaster made the right call.
And like much of his good work, it went unnoticed.
The Deepwater Horizon disaster has been a human tragedy. It's a political farce, a telling example of corporate greed, a case study of the difficulties of running and setting up an large, multi-state impromptu operation comprised of organizations with their own agendas, blind spots and oppositional defiance.
But at its heart and soul, the Deepwater Horizon disaster is a science story. Unfortunately the science reporting about the story has been dismal. The working science of the disaster is difficult to understand and rewrite. And the scientific strands of the story spin out in many different directions and involve many different disciplines-engineering, biology, economics, ecology, marine science, physics, for example.
The technical science has been sacrificed for shocking snap shots of fouled beaches and dead fowl. Spoken controversy, of which there has been plenty, has focused on politics, seldom on the important debates but the science. The emphasis on politics and the absence of science led to rampant speculation, suspicious second guessing, and fed the anger and cynicism about the response efforts. The fear is visceral: oil ingested or inhaled can damage red blood cells, cause brain lesions, pneumonia, kidney damage, stress and death.
The Right Call
But Wednesday, July 14, 2010, Thad Allen got the science right and issued his most important command. He order the planned cap seal installation and well integrity tests halted for 24 hours. The call took guts. It was seen by many as another example of being overly cautious, bureaucratic, prodding, and informed by fear. In reality, this single bold call will stand with one of the great decisions of American leadership in war or peace.
Admiral Allen in his typical fashion says those sitting around the table decided together, but the final call was his. His delay of the testing procedures sent a clear message: Admiral Allen's stand down actually put the team on alert; he intervened at the right time to shake-up business-as-usual. It brought home the crucial importance of the next series of steps and tests.
Thad Allen's decision has been overshadowed by a major breakthrough that followed on its heels: the new cap seal now in place, when its hydraulic rams were activated at 3:25 pm/EDT, July 15, completely stopped the flow of oil into the Gulf. For the first time in weeks, the ROV videos show only still waters. The dark flume of oil and gas sprouting and billowing a mile under the sea has ceased. There is a feeling of uneasy relief.
At the July 14 evening briefing and again, at the July 15, 2010 morning briefing, Allen explained the critical importance the delay and the well integrity tests conducted over 48 hours when the cap is in place.
"The reason we took the pause was to consider seismic, acoustic, sonar, and visual inspections. We will learn a lot from the well integrity test about the ability of the well to hold pressure, low or high. This is very instructive for how we are going to penetrate the well. It helps determine the amount of mud, the weight of mud, and how they might ultimately plug the well with cement.
"To conduct the kill itself we will have empirical pressure readings and understand to a greater certainty the condition of the well bore."
What Allen describes next in the briefing (posted at C-SPAN, http://bit.ly/9FXOfO+) is the most sensitive and important part of the preparations to successfully kill Deepwater Horizon (DH). Despite the success of the sealing cap in containing the oil, in response to a press question, Allen asserted: "Make no mistake: the #1 goal is to shut in the well kill it and stop it at the source."
The Critical Step
Why are the pressure tests for well integrity vitally important? The pressure at the top of the well becomes the back pressure when the relief well is connected to the HD shaft and the mud inserted. The drilling mud stops the oil, interpreting its flow 13,000 feet below the ocean floor. The back pressure holds the drilling mud in place and keeps it from flowing up/rising to the top. Once the flow stops, the concrete plugs that will finally seal the well can be inserted. Once in place, the concrete plugs kill it.
The top pressure is absolutely vital to knowing the amount and density of mud to pump into the DH well shaft. It also effects the rate to feed mud into the HD shaft. The top pressure also affects the composition of the concrete used to plug the well. The mud is the surgeon's scalp: a detailed reading of well head pressure is necessary to know when, where and how deep to cut.
Allen's 24 hour suspension of the cap installation signaled to all involved the seriousness of the tests and next steps. At this juncture, the synergy produced by installing the cap seal would partially direct and improve the quality of the moves that came after. Allen avoided rushing forward on unsound and non-scientific judgments. His leadership and his decision made certain best practices would be applied.
The pressure at the top is a key to what happens later, down below, at 13,000 feet. And the key to knowing what is happening at the top was double checked, careful, methodical planned and executed.
The final seal of the well will involve a static balance of mud between the oil gushing up from the reservoir and the oil in the well shaft above. The pressure from both sides, above and below, holds the mud in place.
Allen noted the "only reason to terminate the test would be a very low pressure indicate oil would be being released out into the well bore," and today (July 16) BP reports top pressure readings are in the gray zone. While not announcing specifics, the team had hoped for stronger readings from the sensors around 8,000 pounds for square inch (psi). The pressure at the reservoir level beneath the ocean floor is thought to be 11,000 psi. [writer's note: As of the posting, the tests have read only 6,700 psi, but the graph of the increase is consistent with well integrity.]
Why did it take 85 days to get the sealing cap assembly in place? Admiral Allen: "It had to be designed, built, tested, and moved into place. The systems integration testing was extensive; this is a custom built stack, and actually simulations of its installation were done, simulations of bolting it into place."
And using a schematic drawing to illustrate the hydraulic leak that required the "entire choke assembly removed and replaced," Allen explained a further delay.
The sealing cap assembly is designed to provide "redundant capacity" for containing the oil bilge. Either through the cap itself shutting off the well, or though four lines that can be hooked to the unit to gather up to 80,000 barrels a day, the well can be effectively contained until it is killed.
The sealing cap, Allen explained, is really "a mini blow out preventer" with a special fitted cap to tightly seal the riser pipe of the Deepwater Horizon well. But Allen emphasized "consistent low pressure readings could indicate that pockets of oil are breaching the well's casing and being forced out on sea floor." [Again, while the pressure readings are low, this does not seem to be the case.]
The dangers to finishing the job now lie in the weather conditions. A hurricane in the Gulf would shut down the containment efforts and kill progress.
Science and the Press
At the briefings, Allen had more good news: "the relief well only is only 4 or 5 feet from Deepwater Horizon (DH) well bore, but it still needs to be drilled down another 100 feet." When it is completed the relief well must hit the DH well shaft which is only seven inches in diameter."
During the well integrity tests, the relief shaft is filled with mud to prevent damage to the relief shaft if the DH shaft is unstable.
The July 15 press briefing was instructive: even after Allen explained the tests, their purpose and why this data was vital to the kill operation, it was clear from follow-up questions that many reporters did not understand his explanation! The science was hard for many to grasp. Several were still asking, bewildered, is the capping stack the solution?
Answer: No. "Its an intermediate step, pending the finishing of the relief wells and plugging the hole."
And so the next questioner began with, "sorry, but I'm a little confused. . ." and asked almost the same thing.
In another case, after answering an question with fluid technical proficiency, Allen looked at a reporter, and noting her body language, asked if his answer was, "Responsive?" Without speaking, the reporter just nodded.
All of the work on the well-the collection of its flow, the drilling of the relief wells, the transport of materials and equipment is taking place in "two square miles of ocean." It's crowded with ships, as many as 65 every day; its nickname is simply the city.
The problem with modern media is that it really acts as a filter to separate you from your own impressions-media substitutes its eyes and ears and translations for your firsthand, direct experience. Only C-SPAN, the public affairs network has shown the Allen briefings unfiltered and toured the command center in Houma, Louisiana.
Thad Allen's Background
Thad Allen is a baby boomer, born in January, 1949 in Tucson, Arizona. He spent 39 years in the Coast Guard, becoming the Coast Guard's 23 Commandant in 2006 and retiring in July, 2010. He has helped manage responses to other national disasters. He directed the federal response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the Gulf, before becoming Commandant.
His father was a Chief Damage Controlman in the Coast Guard and a veteran of World War II. Allen attended the US Coast guard Academy in New London CT, played football, and graduated from MIT's Sloan School of Management with a Master's degree in Management where he was a Sloan fellow, a special program for high achieving managers. He also earned a Master's in Public Administration from George Washington University, in Washington, DC.
Allen's first assignment as a flag officer was as Commander of the Seventh Coast Guard District. He directed all operations in the Southeastern United States and Caribbean. Following that assignment he served as Commander, Atlantic Area and U.S. Maritime Defense Zone Atlantic. In this capacity he oversaw all Coast Guard operations on the U.S. East Coast, Gulf Coast, and Great Lakes in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
He is an expert marksman.
Executive Summary
I, for one, think that Admiral Thad Allen has done an excellent job. He listens well, is even tempered, consistent, highly energetic, a quick study, well spoken, and honest without hype or despair. He is caring, committed, and works to the finish. He is not touchy about criticism or snippy. He has exceptional insight and has absorbed a whole range of technical and science issues with efficiency. I'm deeply disappointed that some have labeled him without cause and smeared him with ridicule. Let them walk in his shoes. If there are problems, they lie in the middle where too many wild cards think they are chiefs and are issuing directives on their own, under the cover of the disaster, and not following the orders from the top, or from BP acting like a loose canon.But when it counted, Admiral Allen tightened up.
Writer's note: Admiral Allen has issued a statement saying that after well integrity tests are completed, containment will immediately begin, bringing the oil to the surface through pipes and lines connected to surface vessels as had been done previously. The re-connections will result in oil released into the Gulf. The next major problem is how to recycle the collected oil. The ongoing problem is cleaning up the spill.]
Thanks for reading! /wr. Stir the Perlo, leave a comment.
All photos used as government works or fair use; or from Sky Truth's photostream on flickr, used under creative commons license.
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