From News Inferno:
BP reported some progress in containing the Deepwater Horizon oil spill over the weekend, saying Saturday that its latest fix had captured 10,500 barrels of crude coming from the gushing well a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico. Unfortunately, crude is still pouring into the Gulf, as government scientists have estimated 12,000 to 19,000 barrels of oil a day, at a minimum, to be leaking from the well. [Other experts estimate that the leak could be spewing as much as 25,000 barrels of oil a day.]
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill began on April 20, when the oil rig exploded, killing 11 crew. Since then, roughly 23 million to 49 million gallons of oil have leaked into the Gulf. The spill has already surpassed the Exxon Valdez disaster, and ranks as the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
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BP CEO Tony Hayward told the BBC that the company hopes a second containment system will be in place by next weekend. Once the cap is fully operational it could capture a maximum of 630,000 gallons of oil a day if it is successful. But the oil leak won’t be permanently stopped until BP completes one of two relief wells it is drilling nearby. The earliest that will occur is mid-August.
The oil has already fouled stretches of coast in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Tar balls have been reported on beaches along the Florida panhandle, and the slick is just a few miles from shore there. According to a report on MSNBC, officials along the Texas Gulf Coast have also reported that dead birds with oil on them were found for the first time in that state.
From ABC News:
BP, the very company responsible for the oil spill that is already the worst in U.S. history, has purchased several phrases on search engines such as Google and Yahoo so that the first result that shows up directs information seekers to the company's official website.
A simple Google search of "oil spill" turns up several thousand news results, but the first link, highlighted at the very top of the page, is from BP. "Learn more about how BP is helping," the link's tagline reads.
The live stream from the well.
Photo from The Huffington Post.
The live stream is not working. Why am I not surprised?
ReplyDeleteSusan, I was going to change the link directly to BP's site, but the live stream is not working there, either. Perhaps I should anyway to show that the fault does not lie with PBS.
ReplyDeleteGM, thank you for posting the pictures you have, even though they are not pleasant to look at. Too much of what is being seen is santized.
ReplyDeleteRB, thanks. Grandpère says I should stop, because the pictures are so awful, but I think we must see the awful pictures.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Mimi! Keep putting them up!
ReplyDeleteI changed the link to FireDogLake, and the video is working at the moment.
ReplyDeleteSo what happened to the idea that there should be 'skimmer' tankers on the water gathering oil as they did off the coast of Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War? I thought I heard someone say that they got about 60 to 80% of the oil back that way.
ReplyDeleteSusan, I don't know. I suppose the idea might actually work, so it's no go. What about hay and/or flour, which were also used in the Saudi accident?
ReplyDeleteDid you watch Rachel Madden's piece comparing the 1979 disaster to 2010? Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. They haven't learned anything but how to drill deeper. They still don't know how to fix these things.
ReplyDeleteCaminante, I missed that show. Do you know the date?
ReplyDeleteA simple Google search of "oil spill" turns up several thousand news results, but the first link, highlighted at the very top of the page, is from BP. "Learn more about how BP is helping," the link's tagline reads.
ReplyDeleteYou can't make this sh*t up...
JCF, you can't make it up. Are we in the Bizarro world or the Twilight Zone?
ReplyDelete