A summary of May 22 events related to the vast Gulf oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon rig

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Some oil spill events from Saturday, May 22, 2010

A summary of events on Saturday, May 22, Day 31 of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that began with the April 20 explosion and fire on the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, owned by Transocean Ltd. and leased by BP PLC, which is in charge of cleanup and containment. The blast killed 11 workers. Since then, oil has been pouring into the Gulf from a blown-out undersea well at a rate of at least 210,000 gallons per day.

HOW MUCH?

BP has conceded that more oil is leaking than its initial estimate of 210,000 gallons a day total, and a government team is working to get a handle on exactly how much is flowing. Even under the most conservative estimate, about 6 million gallons have leaked so far, more than half the amount spilled by the Exxon Valdez.

WHERE TO?

Coast Guard officials said Saturday the spill’s impact now stretches across a 150-mile swath, from Dauphin Island, Ala. to Grand Isle, La.

IMPOSSIBLE CLEANUP

The gooey oil washing into the maze of marshes along the Gulf Coast could prove impossible to remove, leaving a toxic stew lethal to fish and wildlife, government officials and independent scientists said. Officials are considering some drastic and risky solutions: They could set the wetlands on fire or flood areas in hopes of floating out the oil. But they warn an aggressive cleanup could ruin the marshes and do more harm than good. The only viable option for many affected areas is to do nothing and let nature break down the spill.

POLITICS

The month-old oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has unleashed a gusher of congressional hearings that may prove nearly as hard to cap as the blown BP well. In an election year rife with political posturing, the spill from the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig is proving an easy target for lawmakers, whose fears of being swept out of office by an anti-incumbent wave were reinforced by Tuesday’s batch of primaries. The blowout and the ensuing giant oil leak gave rise to 10 congressional hearings over the past two weeks. Five more are scheduled for this coming week, and at least five more are on tap in June. President Barack Obama is naming a special independent commission to review the accident.

SPILL COMMISSION

The White House has tapped former Florida Sen. Bob Graham and ex-EPA Administrator William K. Reilly to lead a presidential commission investigating the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The White House was expected to make the announcement Saturday. The choices were confirmed ahead of time by two people familiar with the decision who would speak only on condition of anonymity ahead of the formal announcement. Graham is a Democrat and Reilly served in a Republican administration, a bipartisan model similar to other high-level investigative panels. The White House has said it was modeling the commission on panels that investigated the 1986 space shuttle Challenger disaster and the nuclear power plant accident at Three Mile Island in 1979.

FLORIDA KEYS

A powerful current forecast to bring oil from the massive Gulf of Mexico spill to the Florida Keys has shifted, though fears remain that the slick will inevitably hit the state. At a public meeting Saturday, officials tried to allay residents’ fears, saying the so-called “loop current” expected to send the oil to Florida had moved west. That could delay the arrival of tar balls and other forms of oil to the Keys. The loop current is a ribbon of warm water that begins in the Gulf of Mexico and wraps around Florida. Like the oil, the loop’s position is constantly changing based on winds and currents, meaning predictions on its trajectory are also ever-fluctuating. Capt. Pat DeQuattro, commander of the Coast Guard station in Key West, said NOAA projections do not forecast the oil arriving in the Keys before Monday.

TOP KILL

BP now says it will likely be at least Tuesday before engineers can shoot heavy mud into then blown-out well spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Three ultra-deepwater rigs and other equipment are at the site where the Deepwater Horizon oil platform exploded. They’re preparing for a delicate procedure called a “top kill” that BP hopes will stop the flow of oil from the well.