Evening Buzz: How Much Oil is Still Leaking Into the Gulf?
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/06/07/c1main.oil.slick.jpg caption="Oil pools near a boom alongside Cat Island near Grand Isle, Louisiana." width=300 height=169]
Maureen Miller
AC360° Writer
About 466,000 gallons or 11,100 barrels of oil are now being collected by BP after it placed a containment cap on the ruptured Gulf well last week. But how many barrels are still leaking? BP won't say. Keep in mind, last week officials admitted that "cut and cap" work could have increased the flow of oil by as much as 20 percent. Plus, three of four vents on the cap are still open, allowing oil and gas to leak out. Tonight Anderson will talk with an engineer at Purdue University who questions what BP is saying to the public. We're keeping them honest.
Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, who is overseeing the government's response to the spill, said today it will take "years" to clean up the oil.
"We're no longer dealing with a large, monolithic spill. We're dealing with an aggregation of hundreds of thousands of patches of oil that are going a lot of different directions. And we've had to adapt, and we need to adapt to be able to meet that threat," Admiral Allen said at a news conference at the White House.
Randi Kaye has a report tonight from Destin, Florida where city officials aren't waiting around for BP to take action.
Tar balls are already washing up on shore. But BP hasn't shown up. There's also an oil sheen nine miles off the coast. But again, BP hasn't shown up. Destin leaders are taking their own steps to protect their beaches, including 15 rare coastal dune lakes. We'll show you what they're doing.
In Louisiana, BP announced today it will give the state $60 million to start funding the $360 million cost of six berms to protect the barrier islands.
"We understand the importance of this to Louisiana and the parishes, cities, towns and our responsibility to make sure that that funding is made immediately," Robert Dudley, BP Managing Director said this afternoon.
Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser welcomed the news. He met with Dudley and others today about the berm project.
"It will give us a fighting chance and together we're gonna win this war," Nungesser said. We'll have more with Nungesser tonight on the program.
Anderson will also have more of his exclusive interview with five men who survived the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion that led to the spill.
Join us for these stories and much more starting at 10 p.m. ET. See you then.
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Filed under: Maureen Miller • The Buzz |
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That is a good question .How much is getting past the cap ? Why can't they put a pipe into the well head and with locking dogs to hold this pipe in place and have an inflatable bladder around the pipe using hydrolic oil to inflate this bladder to seal it ,then the oil can be recovered without any leakage at all.A barge can be moored in place above it and a flexible pipe can be used .and then an oil tanker can be used to recover the oil .
Hey BP needs to stop the spin!
BP press releases are using different measurement units for their spin. They use gallons for oil collected but barrels for oil spilled in their press releases. Thank you for the converterted figures in the first sentence of the above article –
466,000 gallons to 11,000 barrels.
Hey Anderson,
I remember well ( pun intended) when we had a burst main water pipe in our house. You know what I never asked how much water was gushing out I just asked for I the water to stopped completely a.s.a.p.
Its simple logic once discovered it irrelevant how much is leaking only once its out how much damage it actually did. The question of how many gallons is irrelevant as such, what matter is the consequential damage therefrom with whatever best practice you can do until the leak is stopped to minimise damage.
Having said that " experts said 12- 19 k barrells add 20% for cutting off the riser and you have about 24K barrels now 11,000 being recovered so almost 50 %. those were your previously reported facts. Today you have to dramatise it again and some experts say it could be a lot more, based on what and what expert said so? Great drama but thin on fact Just trying to Keep them Honest whoever them are.
The realpoint is you are asking a question to which no expert can give a correct answer as they are assessing something like this for the first time.
Regards,
Hodgson.
I live in Las Vegas but I am from the Destin area and my heart is breaking at the thought of everything that makes that place so special is being destroyed. I think I have a way to capture the oil coming out of the riser that is so simple it might work. I only hope someone reads this that can look at it and determine if it will. My idea is to basically make an inverted funnel just like you would use to put oil in a car ironically. It is made out of fabric and large enough in circumference to span the well forty to fifty feet on all sides. It can be unrolled close to the well and inflated with an air bubble to give it it's cone shape and then suspended thirty to forty feet above the well and anchored down. In the center of the cone a fabric pipe will expand with the oil and rise up through it to the top and can be pumped off. The benefit to catching the oil some distance from the well head is a lot of the pressure will have dissipated. I can only hope someone will check the feasibility of my idea.
The people have every right to be upset. The government is not acting when it should be. As president, I would not sit idle while the Gulf Region is destroyed. I would not wait for BP to cough up the funds. I would aggressively go after BP to pay for all of this. However, in parallel, I would use all necessary US Government dollars to start cleaning this up now! 5, 10, 20 or 30 Billion no matter what the cost. The Government has made a huge blunder by not taking control of this mess!!!
As A 5th generation Walton County resident and the Chairwoman of the Coastal Dune Lake Advisory Board I was ecstatic to see your coverage on the Dune Lakes tonight.
I feel like your reporting makes it seem like it is fishermen vs. BP with fishermen being the louisana people. I drove to Venice, la yesterday and saw nothing but oil rigs, storage, and operations. The name of the road to the Venice marina is haliburton road no less! It dawned on me that the only reason BP is pushing the technical envelope and putting the environment at risk is us! We all drive SUVs, we have communities like Venice, la that clearly survive from the oil industry, yet we want to put all the blame on BP. I have no particular love for BP and it does seem they have cut safety corners but there is plenty of blame here beyond BP. Obama is doing fine. We Americans don't want to own our share of accountability for this mess and we have a significant share.
They show us all the oil flowing out into the Gulf, now it's time to put a cam on the boom at the top to see it going into the ships. Lets just see how much they are taking in. I'd make a million dollar bet it's nothing.
You're not asking the right questions: why have all the options to plug/close the oil well failed leaving only the options that allow BP to continue extracting oil once they drill another 'relief' well? Hmmm.
these excuses from bp oil are so unbelieveable.so are their estimations on the leak. They are sounding like charlie browns teacher to me. please lets get some better help with this.
bp doesnt even know how to properly deploy boom this is insane ! most of the boom i see on tv is washed up on shore . the 5 richest company in the world cant even hire people who know how to properly deploy boom . i cannot believe this . my head is going to explode . how can bp be that dumb . how many days this been leaking over 40 days . maybe they should hire a plumber they stop leaking pipes in like 1 hour .
I saw Edward James Olmos on your show tonight and I agree that the White House needs to set up a command center on the Gulf. BP isn't our government. We need to help our own people and wildlife on the beautiful Gulf Coast. I only hope that the animals can forgive us.
Anderson, thank you for the great reporting and your persistence in getting to the truth. Without you, James Carville, Douglas Brinkley, Bobby Jindal, and Billy Nunsegger what would we as a nation know about this tragedy.
Why can't they use straw along the booms in the water to help soak up the oil before it hits the shorelines. There are machines that mulch & shred hay or straw that landscaper use when planting grass seed over large areas that shoots the straw/hay out with high pressure. This machine could be mounted on a boat and disperse the straw in the water to be collected abd control burned after it has absorbed the oil?? Just a thought, the straw would be less harmful to the environment and put some $$ back into the economy for farmers.
I believe BP are overusing dispersants. Thats scary, I would like to see My country (Canada) Help out with more skimmers and booms as well as government and industry cleanup workers.
Who was running our country when this rig was built? Who were the contractors and why aren't they being held responsible? There must have been some internal interest in letting them drill so deep? Who were the ones who decided to leave out the safety valve?
Tell us the Truth!!!
Thank you for your diligent work providing up-to-the-minute, live coverage regarding the BP Oil Disaster and continue to keep the public informed with more information regarding the containment and remediation processes. Obviously, it will be weeks before the relief well is completed -what type of mitigation and remediation processes is BP and/or other companies doing to control the spread of oil? Also, by soliciting the knowledge of world renowned experts from other corporations and academic scholars will keep the public informed and hold BP accountable for the man-made disaster they have created.
I'd like to know if there is verification that BP is actually getting as much oil as they say they are with their track record I worry they are again misleading the public.
After cutting the riser 20 percent more oil is being released, so what is the percentage actually being captured? Is it capturing back the 20 percent + or is is less then and cutting the riser actually has caused a bigger disaster?
I know AC360 and CNN is "Keeping Them Honest", and with you all on the job at least has me sleep better at night that the future of so many is in better hands because of it.
Looking forward to tonight's show.
Destin is doing the right thing by going ahead and doing what they can to protect their beaches, etc. and not waiting on BP. More places along the Gulf should do the same and send BP the bill. The people whose beaches these are and who depend on them for their livelihood or just a pleasant part of their lives are more inclined to get out there in a timely fashion before the oil has come ashore and already started damaging the terrain. Looking forward to seeing the reports tonight – especially the one about how much is still leaking into the Gulf and why those vents are still open.