 With a vast oil slick now within only 20 miles of the ecologically fragile Louisiana coastline, Coast Guard officials said they were considering a “controlled burn” of the petroleum on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. "If we don't secure the well, this could be one of the most serious oil spills in U.S. history," Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mary Landry, head of a joint response task force, said at a press conference Tuesday afternoon. Oil is still leaking at a rate of about 42,000 gallons a day from the well, located some 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana beneath a drill rig that exploded and sank last week. If the slick is set on fire, it would be a controlled burn using fire-proof booms, and only done during the day, said Landry. Efforts are also underway near the shoreline to deal with the spill should it reach land, including positioning boom material around sensitive ecological areas. BP is now using a set of remote controlled submarines in an attempt to activate the well's "blow out preventer" -- a steel device the size of a small house that sits atop the well and is intended to choke off the flow of oil in the event of a disaster. Mr. Suttles said that a plan to use a type of tent or dome to collect the oil was progressing and was two to four weeks from being operational.
– The Coast Guard is considering setting the gigantic oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico ablaze as it approaches land. A controlled burn to burn off the oil could happen as soon as today if winds keep pushing the Rhode Island-sized slick toward ecologically sensitive areas of the Mississippi Delta, CNN reports. "We fully understand that there are benefits and trade-offs" in torching the slick, the admiral co-ordinating federal operations told the New York Times. Birds and mammals will be "more than capable" of handling the effects of a burn, which will remove most of the oil and leave a waxy residue, said a Coast Guard spokesman.