Oil spill containment

Hurricane Alex might affect oil spill containment efforts for days, according to officials. In good weather over 6,000 boats are involved to clean up oil spills, but yesterday only the biggest ships remained there, so that many workers will need to sit and wait. In this case the little progress that was done will be lost.

The first hurricane of the Atlantic hurricane season was producing waves 6 to 8 feet high and the winds were between 17 and 22 knots at the spill site. The storm winds was moving counterclockwise in a huge arc Wednesday and it is forecast to dissipate over Mexico in the next days. The officials created an evacuation plan with BP that may be applicable for the entire hurricane season.

In its 73rd day, the worst oil spill in American history continues to cause environmental and economic disasters. Between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels of oil are gushing into the gulf every day according to last estimation. Representative Edward Markey generated many comments after he told that BP’s disaster response plan doesn’t mention hurricanes or tropical storms, according to The Boston Globe. It looks like the words “tropical storm’’ or “hurricane’’ do not appear in their almost 600-page oil spill containment plan.

The officials hope to implement a new system that will clean up oil spills, absorbing 21 million gallons of oil-water mixture per day, attaching a flexible pipe to a containment dome. This will be lowered above the broken well and siphon oil to a waiting ship.

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