It has been more than 60 days since the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster started, and still BP has not managed to stop the flow of oil. Several of my vacation spots are now fouled with oil.

On Saturday, June 19, 2010, oil spread northeast from the leaking Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico. The oil appears as a maze of silvery-gray ribbons in this photo-like image from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite.

The location of the leaking well is marked with a white dot. North of the well, a spot of black may be smoke; reports from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say that oil and gas continue to be captured and burned as part of the emergency response efforts.

Meanwhile, BP is continuing to drill two relief wells. The first well is at 15,936 feet and the second well is at 10,000 feet. The plan is to intersect the primary, blown-out, well at 18,000 feet. Once they do that, BP will fill the primary well with mud and cement to stop the flow. The project is ahead of schedule, but is still expected to be completed in mid-August. That latest development is that BP is now using ranging equipment to home in on the damaged well. This ranging equipment sends out an “electric current from the relief well that will make contact with the well casing in the damaged well, creating an electromagnetic field between the wells that signals information about direction and distance.”, reports Jaquetta White for The Times-Picayune.

via Oil Slick in the Gulf of Mexico : Image of the Day.

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