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Hundreds of thousands view Markey's live feed of oil spill

E-mail|Link|Comments () May 21, 2010 12:04 PM

A still image of the pipe spewing oil this morning

By Martin Finucane, Globe Staff

Hundreds of thousands of people have visited the website of the House select committee chaired by Massachusetts Representative Edward Markey to see live video of the oil gushing from the broken pipe that is creating the massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a spokesman said.

The live feed was posted shortly before 1:30 p.m. Thursday, said Eben Burnham-Snyder, a spokesman for the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. The video, transmitted from 5,000 feet below the sea's surface, showed billowing clouds streaming upward from pipes on the sea floor this morning.

"This is a victory for transparency and open access to information, and for the ongoing efforts to understand the magnitude of this unfolding disaster and how best to solve it. Now the world can see what is happening 5,000 feet beneath the ocean floor, without having to wait hours before knowing what BP has either done or failed to do," Markey said Thursday in a statement. "I am pleased to have been able to help secure this result for the public."

Markey had asked BP earlier this week to release the feed.

BP issued a statement this morning that it was also making the live video available on its website, www.bp.com. It said it had already been providing a live feed to government agencies for two weeks.