[NeilBlanchard]

Christopher,

They had a so-called fail-safe device, called a "blowout preventer" on the well -- it is the *only* thing they had in place. And obviously, it failed.

The pressures are enormous -- there is ~5,000 feet of water above the well head, and they drilled it at least 13,000 feet below the ocean floor. They were licensed to drill as deep as 18,000 feet, and there are some people who claim that BP had drilled this well as deep as 25,000 feet (illegally). So, the temperatures of the oil, and the pressures on the methane compress it about 3,000:1, but it then expands which cools it, causing ice to form. The methane *may* be being absorbed in to the water, but this will cause dead zones because it depletes all the oxygen in the area.

This is an epic disaster. Some people are predicting that the oil cannot be stopped, and it will continue to gush until the oil/gas is depleted, OR until the pressures are equalized! By BP's own estimate, that would mean that about 50 MILLION BARRELS in total will be in the water.

That is 2,100,000,000 GALLONS of oil, and who knows how much methane....

They have been dumping in chemical dispersants willy-nilly -- these are probably toxic and they will break down the oil into smaller droplets -- so that it will affect smaller animals and plants. The dispersants may also have numerous other more subtle affects, like endocrine disruptors -- which affect the hormones and may produce a myriad of reproductive distortions...