CNN 2010-05-09

Another big story we're following for you this morning, that massive oil spill in the Gulf 1 of Mexico. Boom! They're now being battered 2 in the water, and one of the main lines to defense 3 here against the Gulf of Mexico oil spill may not in the end hold up.

Meanwhile, BP is still, they say, about a week away from possibly being able to contain the underwater leak. All of this the size of Delaware, the slick, the size of Delaware as we've been estimating actually moves closer and closer to shore. CNN's Reynolds Wolf has been live for us in Venice, Louisiana this morning.

Reynolds, let's just start with this big spill as we said, size of Delaware, moving closer and closer to all of those different states. Do we have any indication yet when it will hit the shore?

Well, That's great question. I can tell you this morning if there's a sense of urgency and opportunity as this thing is just sitting out there in the Gulf of Mexico, some of it actually has moved into a place called the Shandor Islands that is not far from the Louisiana Coast, about 20 miles east of Louisiana. I can tell you that the urgency is getting out there and trying to contain this as quickly as they possibly can. I'll tell you this. The first day, in about 36 hours, the weather should cooperate where crews can actually get out on the open water and get back to work.

When I say get back to work, what they're going to do is lay on more of that emergency boom. As you take a look at this video, over 300,000 feet of the boom and then later on in parts of the Gulf Coast from Louisiana back to Mississippi and even to Alabama and, of course, to the Florida panhandle and get this, Brook 4, as over a million additional fee of guaranteed (ph) boom that is yet have been deployed 5. We've also talked about the chemical dispersant. They've been spraying on the oil as it comes out to the major leaks. This chemical dispersant, they've used 150,000 gallons of it so far.

It has a molecular 6 bond with the oil as it leaves the leak, weighs it down, keeps it on the ocean floor, but the latest thing that they tried or they will try within the next possibly five to six days is the sub sea oil recovery system which was build over in Port Fourchon, Louisiana, not far from where we happen to be at this time. It is a structure that weighs 125 tons, enormous. It looks like almost a two-story structure, has a bit of a dome 7 at the very top of it, and what it does, actually, draws the oil from the ocean floor, from this leak, all the way up to a ship.

The deep water enterprise that will actually take the oil, harvest it and bring it back to shore or at least unload it on other craft who can then bring it back and safeguard the oil at shore. If this works, if it goes to plan, it can actually recover, they believe, up to 85 percent of the oil that is leaking from one of these large three leaks under water which certainly some great news.

In terms of where exactly the oil happens to be, our friend and colleague, Rob Marciano, flew out yesterday. I can tell you from his aerial observations, he mentioned that he was about 30 miles off, the thicker crude about 30 miles off the Mississippi coast. The sheen and oil of some of the heavier crude have infiltrated 8, as I mentioned, the Shandor Islands. It's the 20 miles east of our exact position, but again, as you mentioned, Brook, this is a huge mass of oil, a mass of oil about the size of Delaware. Let's send it back to you.And unfortunately, they can't shut it off just by hitting that blowup preventer. BP very frustrated 9 over that. Reynolds Wolf, I'm heading down to the coast today. I'll see you there, friend. Thank you.