Oil Spill Sends Foul Smell to New Orleans

Oil company weighs yet another spill strategy

(NEWSER) - Protesters took to the streets of New Orleans yesterday as BP weighed yet another strategy to plug the 6-week-old oil spill after the crushing failure of the "top kill" approach . "The federal government's inaction is horrible," a protester told the Times-Picayune . "We didn't know it was this bad in New Orleans until this past week or two." More»

Around 35% probably evaporated, model suggests

(NEWSER) - The Deepwater Horizon disaster has led to the release of million of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, but figuring out where it all is has proven kind of hard. Roughly 4.6 million gallons seem to have pooled into a shape-shifting blob off the coast of Louisiana, and some has washed up as far away as Alabama. But even more is unaccounted for, and it's unclear where it'll ultimately wind up. More»

Many plan to stay till the bitter end, if need be

(NEWSER) - The sultry, salty soul of Louisiana's Cajun culture is inextricably bound to the rhythm of the waters of the Gulf: The sea provides plentiful food, work, and a lifestyle that has endured since the Cajuns settled there in the 1700s. But the sea has also been quick to punish, and the threat of hurricanes and floods is constant. Nevertheless, it's only now, with the dark fingers of the Gulf oil spill slowly strangling their way of life, that Louisiana's Cajuns must ask themselves if the time has finally arrived that they must leave. More»

Government models weren't updated for deepwater drilling

(NEWSER) - BP's response to the Gulf spill was based on outdated government-provided models that were proven wrong by scientists before they were proven wrong by the disaster. The Minerals Management Service predictions—which didn't even address how oil would behave when spilled a mile under the surface—gave very low odds of oil from a spill even bigger than BP's reaching the Gulf of Mexico coast, the Wall Street Journal reports. More»

Well was fraught with problems going back to June 2009

(NEWSER) - Most of us just woke up one April day to the news that an oil rig had exploded in the Gulf, but BP knew of safety concerns at least 10 months before that, according to documents obtained by the New York Times. The highlights:

• In June 2009, BP engineers worried that the casing the company wanted, for which it had to obtain special permission, might collapse under high pressure in "a worst-case scenario."