Smaller Containment Box Latest Bid to Stop Leak
Updated 6:41 p.m. ET
A BP spokesman says a second, smaller oil containment box known as a "top hat" is being brought to the site of a blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico.
Spokesman Bill Salvin tells The Associated Press the box will be lowered to the seafloor, away from the plume, on Tuesday. He says undersea robots will position it over the gusher by Thursday.
The box is on a vessel in the containment zone right now.
More than 4 million gallons (15 million liters) of oil have spewed from the well since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded April 20. If crude keeps spilling at the current rate of 210,000 gallons (795,000 liters) a day, it will eclipse the Exxon Valdez disaster by Father's Day.
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A larger, 100-ton containment box was rendered useless by a buildup of icelike slush.
The new containment device is much smaller, about 4 feet in diameter, 5 feet tall and weighing just under two tons, said Doug Suttles, BP PLC chief operating officer. Unlike the bigger box, it will be connected to a drill ship on the surface by a pipe-within-a-pipe when it's lowered, which will allow crews to pump heated water and methanol immediately to prevent the ice buildup.
BP - which is responsible for the cleanup - said Monday that the spill has cost it $350 million so far for immediate response, containment efforts, commitments to the Gulf Coast states, and settlements and federal costs. The company did not speculate on the final bill, which most analysts expect to run into tens of billions of dollars.
A CBS News poll out Tuesday says about half of Americans view the oil spill as an isolated incident; 35 percent see it as part of a broader problem. Less than half now favor increased offshore drilling, compared to 64 percent in 2008.
Off Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, sheriff's deputies have been assigned to a new beat: oil patrol. And where Louisiana marshland meets the Gulf, BP has hired crews in HAZMAT suits scrub clean a spill 300 yards long, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann.
On Dauphin Island, Ala., tar balls have washed up on beaches.
The oil now spreads across 2,500 square miles. A spill this size would cover practically the entire metro New York City area or all of San Francisco and San Francisco Bay.
The so called "top hat" would trap oil on the sea floor, and funnel it to a surface ship. But until something stops the leak, people in Plaquemines Parish will hold their breath.
BP has tried burning off the oil, floated 1.5 million feet of protective boom, dropped sandbags and added chemical dispersants to the water to break up oil, Strassman reports, all hoping to save the fragile grasses holding this ecosystem together.
Above the oil leak, waves of dark brown and black sludge crashed into the support ship Joe Griffin. The fumes there were so intense that a crew member and an AP photographer on board had to wear respirators while on deck.
Oil - be it a surface sheen, globules or balls of tar - has washed up west of the Mississippi River and as far east as Dauphin Island, three miles off the Alabama mainland at the mouth of Mobile Bay.
The blowout aboard the rig, which was being leased by BP, was triggered by a bubble of methane gas that escaped from the well and shot up the drill column, expanding quickly as it burst through several seals and barriers before exploding, according to interviews with rig workers conducted during BP's initial, internal probe. The exact cause remains under investigation.