"The Abyss" Director Meets With Federal Officials on Spill

Film director James Cameron, right, and more than 20 scientists, engineers and technical experts met Tuesday with officials from the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies for a brainstorming session on stopping the massive oil leak. in the Gulf of Mexico. The Canadian-born "Avatar" and "Titanic" is considered an expert on underwater filming and remote vehicle technologies

Representatives from the Energy Department, Coast Guard and National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration also participated in the meeting. Other organizations represented at the gathering included the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute; Oceanographic Institute at Harbor Branch, Florida Atlantic University; University of California at Santa Barbara; Nuytco Research Limited; World Wildlife Fund; and the University of California at Berkeley.

James Camerson defended his participation in the Gulf oil spill mitigation talks:

"I spent about one and a half years making “Titanic” and another four and a half years making “Avatar” but the rest of my time in recent years has been spent doing deep-ocean projects. I] first learned to operate a remotely piloted submersible in 1988 while making “The Abyss” and, through and after making “Titanic,” worked extensively in waters far deeper than the location of the destroyed gulf well, designing pressure-resistant camera housings, lighting towers that could be dropped to the seafloor two miles down and other gear requiring pushing the edges of deep-sea engineering.

I did six subsequent deep-ocean expeditions, spent nine months at sea and participated in 55 deep submarine dives. I’ve owned and operated my own submarines and pretty much know everybody in the deep-ocean world outside of the oil business. We are right at the cutting edge on this."

(NYT, 6/4/2010, Wash Post, 6/1/2010)