Gulf Oil Spill : Photos, Latest Updates
British Petroleum (BP) executives admitted on Tuesday that good solutions are still being sought to tackle the Gulf of Mexico oil spill while U.S. officials are weighing a new method to clean up the mess with dispersant chemicals injected underwater.
A source who attended the meeting said that the companies' representatives had a "deer in headlights" look and that the tenor of the conversation was that the firms "are attempting to solve a problem which they have never had to solve before at this depth…at this scope of disaster. They essentially said as much."
"What we heard was worst-case scenario, with no good solutions," said the source, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the meeting.
Officials have estimated that the leak is gushing oil at a rate of 5,000 barrels a day. But if things go badly, representatives for the companies worried that that figure could turn into 60,000 barrels a day, or 2.5 million gallons. Just four days at that rate would exceed the amount of oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez off Alaska, the worst spill in U.S. history.
The latest satellite image of the slick, taken on Sunday night, indicates that it has shrunk since last week, but that only means some of the oil has gone underwater.
The new image found oil covering about 2,000 square miles (5,200 square kilometers), rather than the roughly 3,400 square miles (8,800 square kilometers) observed last Thursday, said Hans Graber of the University of Miami.
Fishing has been shut down in federal waters from the Mississippi River to northwestern Florida, leaving boats idle Monday in the middle of the prime spring season. A special season to allow boats to gather shrimp before it gets coated in oil will close on Tuesday evening.
Dan Turner, spokesman for Mississippi governor Haley Barbour, said the state is "facing a hovering menace out there that keeps changing shape and size by the hour".
The rippling effect of the oil spill tragedy even reached Carlifornia which is located hundreds of kilometers away.
It has prompted governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to call off a plan to expand oil drilling off the Santa Barbara coast which could bring in 100 million dollars in revenues annually.
"If I have a choice between 100 million dollars and what I see in the Gulf of Mexico, I'd rather just figure how to make up for that 100 million dollars," the governor said on Monday.
A source who attended the meeting said that the companies' representatives had a "deer in headlights" look and that the tenor of the conversation was that the firms "are attempting to solve a problem which they have never had to solve before at this depth…at this scope of disaster. They essentially said as much."
"What we heard was worst-case scenario, with no good solutions," said the source, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the meeting.
Officials have estimated that the leak is gushing oil at a rate of 5,000 barrels a day. But if things go badly, representatives for the companies worried that that figure could turn into 60,000 barrels a day, or 2.5 million gallons. Just four days at that rate would exceed the amount of oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez off Alaska, the worst spill in U.S. history.
The latest satellite image of the slick, taken on Sunday night, indicates that it has shrunk since last week, but that only means some of the oil has gone underwater.
The new image found oil covering about 2,000 square miles (5,200 square kilometers), rather than the roughly 3,400 square miles (8,800 square kilometers) observed last Thursday, said Hans Graber of the University of Miami.
Fishing has been shut down in federal waters from the Mississippi River to northwestern Florida, leaving boats idle Monday in the middle of the prime spring season. A special season to allow boats to gather shrimp before it gets coated in oil will close on Tuesday evening.
Dan Turner, spokesman for Mississippi governor Haley Barbour, said the state is "facing a hovering menace out there that keeps changing shape and size by the hour".
The rippling effect of the oil spill tragedy even reached Carlifornia which is located hundreds of kilometers away.
It has prompted governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to call off a plan to expand oil drilling off the Santa Barbara coast which could bring in 100 million dollars in revenues annually.
"If I have a choice between 100 million dollars and what I see in the Gulf of Mexico, I'd rather just figure how to make up for that 100 million dollars," the governor said on Monday.
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