By
Cat Viglienzoni - July 6, 2010
The cleanup efforts in the Gulf of Mexico are going to
get a boost from a giant silver airborne visitor, expected to arrive today. The
U.S. Navy blimp will help find oil, direct skimming ships and look for wildlife
that may be endangered by the spill.
According to the Navy, the blimp is more efficient than
current helicopter patrols because it can stay in the air longer, use less fuel
and survey a larger area. The MZ-3A airship can stay aloft for 12 hours, longer
than helicopters or airplanes. The Coast Guard has already been tracking moving
pools of oil from the sky and sending skimmer vessels to the locations.
However, rough waters have hampered cleanup efforts,
including tests of a massive oil skimmer that arrived in the Gulf last week.
The ship, aptly named 'A Whale,' is about 3.5 football fields long and is the
world's largest skimmer. Its Taiwanese owner claims it can skim up to 21
million gallons of contaminated water from the ocean per day, but those claims
have yet to be proven. Early tests were deemed "inconclusive" because of
inclement weather. Also, according to British Petroleum, the oil is not concentrated
enough for the skimmer to work effectively.
Meanwhile, tar balls started washing up on Texas beaches
near Galveston over the weekend, further extending the spill's reach in the
Gulf. Tar balls have also reached Louisiana's Lake Pontchartrain, and the Coast
Guard reported over the weekend that a shift in weather patterns could send
more oil to sensitive shores in Louisiana and Mississippi.
Federal estimates put the amount of oil that has gushed
into the Gulf since the April 22 explosion at between 1.5 million and 2.5
million gallons daily.
(Photo
courtesy: AP Images)
