Tar Balls Wash Ashore On Florida Beaches, Scientists Warn Oil May Spread Up Atlantic Coast (VIDEO)

BP, Coast Guard withheld video showing massive scope of oil spill



Federal officials and the oil giant BP effectively conspired to keep the worst images of the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico from the public, according to a report Thursday.



The US Coast Guard, which is coordinating response efforts to the spill on behalf of the government, had hours of video showing the extent of the spill within nine days after the spill began. But by that point, they'd released only a single fuzzy still image.



"But inside the unified command center, where BP and federal agencies were orchestrating the spill response, video monitors had already displayed hours of footage they did not make public," ABC News' veteran investigative reporter Brian Ross reports. "The images showed a far more dire situation unfolding underwater. The footage filmed by submarines showed three separate leaks, including one that was unleashing a torrent of oil into the Gulf."



BP told the network they'd turned the video over to the Feds, and the decision to release the video was on the Feds alone.



"The video has been available to the unified command from the very beginning," BP spokesman Mark Proegle was quoted as saying. "It's always been here from the beginning. They had it."



http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0604/bp-feds-videos-showed-magnitude-spill-secret/
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