Well (no pun intended), BP managed to shove something up their greasy hole today (pun very specifically intended). This is something many have suggested that they should do since the burning and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon on April 20. The leak has not stopped, but at the moment some oil is being collected by a ship located above the site of the wreckage. There is no word that this effort will contain all of the leak until new wells are drilled this summer, but something is better than nothing.
The official line is that the leak had been running at 5,000 barrels (200,000 gallons) per day, though estimates by outside sources put it at up to 70,000 barrels (2,800,000 gallons) per day. To date, therefore, the accident has released between 5,200,000 gallons (half of the Exxon Valdez spill) to 72,800,000 million gallons (seven times the Exxon Valdez) into the Gulf of Mexico.
