Newsy: Will the Containment Dome Work?

The first step to controlling the oil spill arrived on the gulf coast. BP hopes the containment dome will collect the leaking oil from one of the deep ruptures.

BP has sent the first round of what it hopes will be effective aid to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

We have perspectives from CNN, Politics Daily, Fox News, and WDSU-TV.

CNN explains how the new technology is expected to help clean up the mess: “They bring this device in and then bring it down slowly, the idea being that if they can they will slowly bring it down above this well and completely cover over that spill. Then with this sitting up on top, it’s obviously not to scale here with the size of the water. They then hook a pipe to the top here, they’ll already have one in place, and with that, they’ll be able to run a hose up from the top of this and this hose will go up to the top where it will feed into a barge.”

Politics Daily says although it’s a step – the dome isn’t really making a big difference: “BP managed to cap one of three leaking wells deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday night, but with two others still spilling oil, the repair will not decrease the flow of crude into Gulf waters.”

Fox News questions the effectiveness of the dome underwater: “Once it goes under water, it’s supposed to trap the oil and eventually siphon it away to a tanker, but dome’s like these are untested at 5,000 feet. We’ll have to see later whether or not that works”

WDSU says experts are concerned, but still say this is the best option they have: “But still most agree that the giant concrete steel box is probably the best short term solution to bottling up the oil. They say the oil is still going to come out at the same rate, it's still going to be on the bottom of the gulf of Mexico, but if they can secure it inside that dome and bring it to the surface where they can treat it, then it doesn't spread out across the surface of the gulf.”

Writer: Alyssa Caverley

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