Gulf of Mexico now worst accidental spill on record

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) - – A Taiwanese supertanker skimmed oil from the Gulf of Mexico Saturday as the months-long disaster became the worst accidental spill on record.

Rough seas and strong winds continued to delay clean-up efforts, displace protective booms and push the oil deeper into fragile coastal wetlands, endangering wildlife preserves and the thousands of birds nesting there.

"This is going to be a very long and arduous clean-up operation in the days to come," said Coast Guard Admiral Paul Zukunft.

"I'm especially concerned with some of the wildlife habitats."

An estimated 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil per day has been gushing out of the ruptured well since the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon drilling rig sank on April 22, some 50 miles (80 kilometers) off the coast of Louisiana.

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Worry that Gulf oil spreading into major current

NEW ORLEANS – BP said Monday it was siphoning more than a fifth of the oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, but worries escalated about the ooze reaching a major ocean current that could carry it through the Florida Keys and up the East Coast.

BP PLC chief operating officer Doug Suttles said Monday on NBC's "Today" that a mile-long tube was funneling a little more than 42,000 gallons of crude a day from a blown-out well into a tanker ship.

The company and the U.S. Coast Guard have estimated about 210,000 gallons are gushing out each day, though scientists who have studied video of the leak say it could be much bigger and even BP acknowledges there's no way to know for sure how much oil there is.

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Video:Gulf of Mexico Oil spill seen underwater

BP has released underwater video showing the oil spewing from the site of the sunken Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico. The footage also shows the dome meant to contain the spill being lowered

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Gulf of Mexico oil spill

During its nine years at sea, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig operated by BP suffered a series of spills, fires — even a collision — because of equipment failure, human error and bad weather. It also drilled the world's deepest offshore well.
But Deepwater Horizon's lasting legacy will undoubtedly be the environmental damage it caused after it exploded and sank, killing 11 crew and releasing an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico.

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