It will take several days before the experimental contraption is fully functional — if it works. Similar operations have been successful in much shallower water, but its never been tried in ocean conditions, a mile below the surface. One problem is the temperature at the ocean’s floor, just 10 degrees Fahrenheit above freezing. That could cause the gooey mixture of oil and gas to freeze on the way up the pipe. Officials say they’ve taken that into account and are pumping warmer water down to try and prevent that from happening. “We haven’t done this before,” said BP spokesman David Nicholas. “It’s very complex and we can’t guarantee it.” Oil giant BP PLC is in charge of cleaning up the mess in the Gulf. It was leasing the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon when it exploded 50 miles offshore April 20, killing 11 workers and blowing open the well. An estimated 200,000 gallons a day have been spewing in the nation’s biggest oil spill since the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska in 1989. The containment box will not solve the problem altogether. Crews are still drilling a relief well and working on other methods to stop the leaks. The quest to stop the oil took on added urgency as it reached several barrier islands off the Louisiana coast, many of them fragile animal habitats. Several birds were spotted diving into the oily, pinkish-brown water, and dead jellyfish washed up on the uninhabited islands. “It’s all over the place. We hope to get it cleaned up before it moves up the west side of the river,” said Dustin Chauvin, a 20-year-old shrimp boat captain from Terrebonne Parish, La. “That’s our whole fishing ground. That’s our livelihood.” If the box works, a second one now being built may be used to deal with a second, smaller leak from the sea floor. Meanwhile, a huge oil slick is floating in the Gulf, and residents of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida are anxiously waiting to learn when it might come ashore. Oil from the spill is extending west around the Mississippi Delta, according to a radar image taken Wednesday night by a Canadian satellite. That extension looks like a finger reaching out from the main patch, imaging expert Hans Graber of the University of Miami said Friday. … Read ahead

Source: npr.org

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