First Signs of Hope for BP | Environmental Concerns Mount

GreenTracker| For the first time since BP’s massive oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico began, the company is hopeful. BP is experiencing some success using robots to insert one end of a mile-long tube into a shattered oil pipe on the ocean floor, hemmoraging on the ocean floor.

The WSJ reports that “BP has begun burning off natural gas emerging from the apparatus at the ocean’s surface.” The massive effort to control the oil flow could be contained by the end of the wek, but countless problems could occur between now and then.

BP PLC chief operating officer Doug Suttles said Monday on NBC’s “Today” that a mile-long tube was funneling a little more than 1,000 barrels — 42,000 gallons — of crude a day from a blown well into a tanker ship. The company and the U.S. Coast Guard have estimated about 5,000 barrels — 210,000 gallons — have been spewing out each day. Engineers finally got the contraption working on Sunday after weeks of failed solutions — however, millions of gallons of oil are already in the Gulf of Mexico. via AP

With the first hopeful signs of progress at the sight of the oil-gusher catastrophe, environmental researchers are concerned that the oil has already leaked into a powerful water stream known as the loop current, which could propel it into the Atlantic Ocean and up the East Coast.