At this point the only plan in the works that has a decent chance of success is drilling two more relief wells near the old one. This is expected to be the long range solution to the continuing leakage of oil, but will take months to complete. According to http://whitehouse.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/05/31/obama-administration-says-secondary-gulf-spill-relief-well-ahead-of-schedule-noaa-closes-more-fishing-areas/ :

- quote -
While meeting with scientists and BP officials, Secretary Salazar emphasized the need to find an immediate, short-term solution to contain the leaking oil. The more permanent solution, the drilling of two relief wells can take up to several months to complete. U.S. government scientists, engineers and experts have been working with independent experts and BP officials on a variety of alternatives to contain the flow of oil immediately.
...
The Development Driller III continues to drill the first relief well to a depth of more than 12,000 feet—10 days ahead of schedule—and is beginning to angle the well at 35 degrees. The Development Driller II has drilled the second relief well to a depth of 8,650 feet.
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The worst aspect is that this spill is currently estimated to be between twice and four times as bad as the Exxon Valdez spill, and counting, fast. The spill has, and will continue to in a worsening ways, devastate the ecology of the Gulf, and potentially the Atlantic Ocean regions near Florida. It also is devastating the already reeling economy of the Gulf states as fisheries are shut down, and tourism suffers.

In the longer term, this disaster is likely to affect off-shore drilling in ways reminiscent of how the famous Three Mile Island incident brought the US nuclear power industry to a near halt for decades. This will make it more difficult to get drilling permits, making the US more dependent on foreign oil, with a large fraction of that purchased from unstable regimes who are not necessarily our friends. It will put us on a greater collision course with the Chinese as they scramble to assure oil imports to support their booming economy, making international cooperation on such crucial national interests as containing the Iranian nuclear threat, dealing with North Korea, etc. that much more difficult.

In short, this is a rapidly escalating disaster with ecological, economic, foreign-relations, and even national security and international conflict resolution implications.

This oil leak - which is almost humorous to refer to as, since it is spewing out over one million gallons of oil per day has become the greatest man made disaster in all of man's history. When will it stop gushing out oil? That's a great question and the answer would come quickly if the government imposed a "stop-production" sanction on ALL of BP oil's activity in the gulf until they stopped it. Currently there are over 3,800 wells in the Gulf and several new permits were issued just last week.

The worst aspect of this disaster is yet to come. As the oil continues to drift inland it is going to destroy the shrimping and oyster harvesting all along the west coast and panhandle of Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Here's something to really give some thought to. Anyone knowing only a little information about the properties of oil on water knows that the oil heats the water up faster than usual. Hurricanes thrive on warm water and since oil floats on top of the water, when a hurricane causes a surge (large wall or wave) of water to rush inland as the water subsides it will leave all of the oil which in turn will kill EVERYTHING it is left on. I live in Citrus County - only 12 miles from the gulf coast and expect to see total chaos over this unprecedented disaster in the gulf.

I really see no end in the near future. it's fun to watch the Colbert Report while he pokes fun at the Coast Gaurds elementary soultions. Then the Daily Show has jokes like "the new aim is not to get the water clean, but to get all that water and dead stuff out of the oil."

While its easy to laugh at these things, its really embarassing and quite tragic. BP has obviously low prevention standards, and outlandish and remedial solutions to an imense problem. If you use the Exxon Mobil spill of 1989 as a comparison, we will not see the gulf clean for many many years. The coast guard did not consider the spill of 89 clean until 1992! This is a spill of much greater magnitude, and from the reports im seeing posted on this thread and on national news, our techniques for cleaning are not much more effective than 20 years ago. Also they still have to figure out how to stop the oil from spilling! In 89 it was just one ship and the only problem was getting the oil out of the water. Im putting my money on ten years, if ever, before its considered clean by the coast gaurd.

The Daily Show clip i posted as a source talks of BP's safety violations, pretty funny, also pretty outrageous. Its sad that this information surfaces only after a catastrophe. Why is that when BP has a 7000% higher safety violation rate than the rest of their compeditors for three years, it somehow never makes it to the news?

P.S. in this video they claim there is a plan to try and isolate all the contaminated water so it wont spread, its obviously made fun of and made cartoonish, but is this true?

When will the oil stop? That won't be until AT LEAST August, when the relief well is completed, says everything I've seen. But they're doing two so there's a backup to the relief well, which itself seems like another hazard in the making.

. It's a given that the environmental catastrophe is huge. But there's another impact:

I was in the hospitality industry for about 12 years. I've traveled to, among other places, pre-Katrina New Orleans once , and to The Keys and the west coast of Florida many times.

Travel and tourism to the entire gulf area, especially in beach towns, will be decimated. The entire hospitality industry includes not only hotels, motels and resorts, but restaurants, convention centers, museums, airlines, public transit systems, the little gift shops--you name it, if someone from out of town is not coming to use it, it's going to suffer. That's thousands of jobs and potentially billions in lost revenue over time.

I don't know when it will stop spilling only that I do sympathize with families that have lost love ones due to this incident. My question is , could this been avoided?
Now it has hurt the fisherman in many ways. Ways in which it hurts values of family members. It has hurt the fish market terribly. It has cost all the fish in the sea to lose their lives, it has costed the fishing industry drastic changes, financially. Could it cause humans, as well as animals ,diseases?
pinky8

The worse is the ecological impact...
What people do not realise is that it would only take one out of control rig spilling as this is to kill the entire oceans worldwide..
What is worse is this oil getting into the ocean conveyor belt.. and traveling around the world literally... When oil hits the icecaps I am sure the tar and oil will cause them to melt even faster.. cause sunlight is hotter on dark material..

We are already approaching something people do not want to discuss after this global warming.. comes the global cooling.. Iceage the moment those last ice caps melt and the ocean conveyor shuts down...

Back, to the oil spill.. Another thing people are not discussing other than the toxicity of this spill is the way it effects the atmospheric conditions ... over 200 meters of ocean water heated or cooled by 2 degrees can trigger massive storms... The purpose of a hurricane is to balance the air and ocean temperature as well as cool heated oceans.. I am sure that all that oil slick that sun is hitting as it evaporates is also changing the ocean tempature..

The worse is not the spill and the cleanup.. but the worse to come is how far inland the hurricanes will drive the toxic water... Last year one hurricane came so far inland it was so strong it knocked out entire woods in Iowa .. Imagine a storm whipping oil spill water and blowing it inland with that power..

This is not just a coastal crisis.. As a Heinzist Minister aka Shaman ..
My job is to work with the weather spirits to bring balance between Humanity and Nature... The weather spirits warned me a hurricane season is about to start... I 3 hrs later after this .. talked to my dad about it.. and he said on the news they stated a possible storm forming off the coast of florida..
What we are witnessing is not the worse yet.. It will be the worse when this the storm season starts...

I heard they got the cap on it and are successfully pumping oil up through it.. Now they need to do this with the other mess of pipes, and everyone needs to hope and pray this works.. This could have happened to any oil company.. So I think everyone putting the full blame on BP is wrong... People need to point fingers at themselves.. as if there was not such a demand for oil.. companies would not be risking drilling into oceans.. and the kind of things they do .. They like everyone else want to make their money.

I am all for boycotting BP until this pipe stops leaking.. But, if they are gonna foot the entire bill for years of cleaning up their mess.. They need our support and prayers as well..

We will be lucky if we ever see the gulf alive and healthy again after this mess within our lifetimes... I for years have carried a nickname "Mother Nature" with me.. So a Natural diasaster at this level .. Just hits hard home... and also for being one who supports and loves Trains and railfanning.. I know the railroad system to has its changes to make.

My only hope is that from this disaster it opens everyones eyes to realise how dangerous it is for us to depend on oil, and a disaster on land is just as bad.. it only takes 2.5 drops of oil to contaminate a gallon of water.. How many gallons of water are in our ocean?...

This oil toxicity to the water and air, as well a health epidemic for people who are willingly to help without the right safety gear.. Oil is hazmat and I can not believe the news and media stating it is not....

It will not be stopped for a long time.. months off yet.. but I pray they can contain it and control its flow ...

when we finilly ask someone whos done it half a dozen times and kick BP out or set a bomb on the ocean floor and pop it ya it'll kill any thing within 5 miles but if we did this earlyer not as may would be killed.we need to stop fooling around and do something smart for a change!