Some oil spill events from Monday, June 7, 2010

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Some oil spill events from Monday, June 7, 2010

A summary of events on Monday, June 7, Day 48 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.

CONTAINMENT

BP PLC said it plans next month to replace the cap collecting the crude with a slightly bigger device. The newer cap will “provide a better, tighter fit” than the current one, company spokesman Robert Wine said. But it will also allow the oil now being collected to again spew out into the Gulf during the changeover.

HOW MUCH OIL

The current device is collecting roughly one-third to three-fourths of the oil gushing daily from the sea floor, BP said. It is sucking up 466,200 gallons of oil per day, said Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government’s point man for the oil spill response.

THE SPREAD

The oil has separated into “hundreds or thousands” of individual patches, Allen said. The spill stretches from the mid-Louisiana coast as far east as the western Florida Panhandle and as far south as 150 miles west of Tampa, Fla. Officials in Panama City Beach, Fla, warned residents that oil could hit shores there within 72 hours.

THE CLEANUP

Allen said cleanup would last into fall and acknowledged the full process would take much longer. Small vessels have been enlisted to help capture those patches using skimmers. At Barataria Bay, La., shrimp boats skimmed up oil, and officials in boats and helicopters patrolling the islands and bays to assess the state of wildlife and the movement of oil.

OBAMA

President Barack Obama sought to reassure Americans that the Gulf Coast would “bounce back” but not without time, effort and reimbursement from BP. He noted, though, that “even if we are successful in containing some or much of the oil,” the problem won’t be solved until relief wells reach the area of the damaged well in several months.

CONGRESS

Members of Congress vowed to repeal a 90-year-old law that limits the amount of money survivors can recover in the deaths of family members killed in the Gulf of Mexico oil rig explosion. Members of the House Energy and Commerce committee said the explosion exposed the need to reform the 1920 Death on the High Seas Act, which limits liability for wrongful deaths more than three miles offshore.

SEAFOOD SNIFFERS

Inspectors are being trained to sniff out seafood tainted by oil in the Gulf of Mexico and make sure the product reaching consumers is safe to eat. But with thousands of fishermen bringing in catch at countless docks across the four-state region, the task of inspectors, both sniffers and others, is daunting.