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I am in no way any authority on this disaster, but I don't see why they did not just build a containment vessel of plastic sheeting, say 500 feet in diameter and the 5000 feet in length necessary.
Sections of a few hundred feet of a circle of 500 feet in diameter, with some re bar at the bottom and something to provide a slight amount of buoyancy at the top. Connect them as you drop them into the area of the leak.
Once you have the leak isolated then you can recover the oil at the top with pumps and barges.
Of course had that been done, then the exact amount of the leak would be known.
It seems like the priority to plug the leak was short sighted, and the cutting of the 21 inch pipe just made the outflow significantly larger.
Not sure why they just didn't try to crush the pipe to minimize the leak, and use the plastic containment vessel to capture and recover the oil.
Not sure of the currents of other reasons why this idea would not work, but I haven't heard any to this point.
regards
Mech
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