A rescue worker captures one oil-covered brown pelican off the coast of Louisiana. AP Photo
The metaphorical tide may have turned in the BP oil spill disaster as the company now claims it is capturing a majority of the oil flowing out of the underwater well. Oil will likely still be flowing until relief wells can be finished in August at the earliest. Still, the reduced flow is at least some good news for Gulf Coast residents. President Obama has stated that any amount of leaking oil is unacceptable, and vowed to stand by the Gulf Coast region to help them recover in the long-term. Here are the latest updates from the Gulf oil spill. Pictures from the disaster can be seen below.
- The cap that BP has put in place over the leak is now working. The question now is how much oil is the cap capturing. A live feed of the operation still shows a significant amount of oil flowing out into the Gulf. Before BP cut the pipe, the flow rate was estimated to be 12,000-19,000 barrels-a-day. After the cut that rate increased approximately 20%. BP claims that it is now capturing a "majority" of the oil using the cap to siphon oil to surface ships. They put the amount being captured at 10,000 barrels-a-day. Some are skeptical of BP's numbers given their earlier estimates of the flow rate which turned out to be dramatically too low. BP originally estimated the flow rate to be about 1,000 barrels-a-day. BP also claims that they may be able to capture more oil through a number of measures such as closing some vents on the cap. There is, however, a danger that closing the vents will allow water and hydrates to form inside the cap, essentially plugging the siphon and making it useless.
- The latest projection maps of the spill have it impacting an increasing amount of the coastline along Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida.
- Rescuers are racing to capture and rescue what is now a large number of oiled birds from the area. Of particular concern is the brown pelican which just came off the endangered species list last year. Pictures of the birds and rescue efforts can be seen below.
- The government closed off an additional 565 square miles of fishing because of the oil spill. One-third of the economic area of the Gulf is now off limits to fishing because of the spill.
- So far, BP has paid out about $46 million in claims. Most of the money has been paid to fisherman and shrimpers out of work because of the spill. BP has promised to keep paying for "as long as it takes" to make people economically whole. Some are skeptical given Exxon's efforts to escape paying damages after originally making the same kind of promises after the Exxon Valdez disaster.
- BP's CEO Tony Hayward has said he will not step down over the disaster. Hayward also predicted that the company would eventually be able to plug the leak and recover long-term from the disaster. Many people predicted that Exxon would be bankrupt after the Valdez oil spill, but the company recently posted the largest profit ever by a company. BP likely hopes to follow that model in its recovery.
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