Deeptrouble, May 31st, 2010: Relief well drilling said to be ahead of schedule

Welcome to the second installment of Deeptrouble, an NPI Advocate special series intended to visually chronicle the immense devastation wrought on the Gulf Coast by the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Today's photo is another taken by Jeffrey Dubinsky for Gulf Restoration Network from aboard an aircraft flying over Lousiana's Redfish Bay last Thursday. (Click on the thumbnail to see a full size version of the image).

Here's a brief recap of what happened in the Gulf the past twenty four hours.

The White House announced this afternoon that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is in the middle of his eighth trip to the Gulf Coast, supposedly to oversee BP's disaster response operations, but also to show solidarity with the federal scientists feverishly working to measure the scope of the disaster and contain the oil.

Meanwhile, Transocean's Development Driller III rig is working on the first of two relief wells, at a depth of more than twelve thousand feet. Drilling progress is said to be around ten days ahead of schedule. Another Transocean rig, the Development Driller II, is working on a second relief well.

The progress of the relief well drilling is important because it's the only proven way to stop an underwater oil gusher. Unfortunately, it could be weeks, possibly months, before the relief wells become operational.

Favorable weather conditions also permitted another controlled burn today. That means there's less oil in the ocean, but more global warming pollution in the atmosphere. It's too bad we can't harness that release of energy.

Since today is a Monday (and normally the beginning of the working week) we'll end this installment of Deeptrouble by listing the latest numbers on the disaster as provided by the Deepwater Horizon Incident Joint Information Center:

• More than 20,000 personnel are currently responding to protect the shoreline and wildlife and cleanup vital coastlines.
• More than 1,700 vessels are responding on site, including skimmers, tugs, barges, and recovery vessels to assist in containment and cleanup efforts—in addition to dozens of aircraft, remotely operated vehicles, and multiple mobile offshore drilling units.
• Approximately 1.95 million feet of containment boom and 1.85 million feet of sorbent boom have been deployed to contain the spill.
• Approximately 13.5 million gallons of an oil-water mix have been recovered.
• Approximately 950,000 gallons of total dispersant have been deployed—740,000 on the surface and 210,000 subsea.

Missing from that list of numbers is the rate at which oil is gushing upwards from beneath the seafloor, because that figure is disputed.