The president should have been on the phone tracking down every skimmer ship or barge that could have been used to clean up that oil. It's basic arithmetic. How many gallons of oil per day leaking out, how much each skimmer ship can suction up, ergo, how many ships are needed. There shouldn't have been any vacation, parties or schmooze events until that was accomplished and they were at sea. The presidency is NOT a part-time or just 9-to-5 job. Here we are seventy days and hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil later, untold destruction to coastline, beaches, wetlands, aquatic life, fisheries, and coastal economies, and still most of those ships are not there yet. Did we mention dolphins, pelicans, and sea turtles? Or damage to human health from toxic gases.
Regarding volume of spill: No one is certain but the estimates keep going up.
Lately containment estimates are scheduled to reach 50,000 barrel per day capacity. Then in July as much as 80,000 barrell per day capacity.
I heard that it realistically could be releasing 75,000 barrels everyday.
75,000 x 42 gallons per barrel = 3,150,000 gallons per day x 70 days = 220,500,000 gallons since the blowout. 220 MILLION GALLONS.
The A Whale skimmer ship -- the length of 3 1/2 football fields and 10 stories high -- is designed to collect up to 500,000 barrels of oily water a day through 12 vents on either side of its bow. LINK
Just that one ship!
IF no dispersents were used and the oil surfaced then was skimmed by an armada of skimmers VERY LITTLE oil would have ever made it to the shores, then bioremediation could easily have cleaned up the residue See http://www.supremesorb.com/
.