Blowout Preventer Removal Suspended Due To Weather

National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen told reporters in a conference call Monday that weather concerns in the Gulf of Mexico are forcing the joint command to suspend operations to remove the stacking cap and blowout preventer from the failed Deepwater Horizon Macondo well.

“We’re only good at to three to five days.  So I am predicting three days at this point.  As I have been (want) to do in the past, I don’t use any hard schedules that should be laid out at this time.  We should have been ready to go right after Labor Day.  But obviously this will move that,” said Allen.

The administration’s point man on the BP-Deepwater Horizon spill response told the media that the weather is not related to tropical depressions in the Atlantic, but local storms in the Gulf.

Retrieval of the blowout preventer remains a crucial part of the federal investigation into what caused the spill.