there was nothing rare about them granting these exemptions. there s been a lot of talk about these things, you use them because yes, it does disperse the oil. a lot of people are saying we can t find oil to skim. maybe the dispersants worked but a lot of people worry what is it doing to the environment. the longlasting effect. we might not know that for some time. reynolds wolf is in new orleans on this day 104 and reynolds, good morning to you once again. this could be a big week this week as it comes to trying to finally kill this well. reporter: that s right. you know, guys, we don t really see the light at the end of the tunnel but we see something looming and it sure looks favorable. we re looking at possibly the two end capping procedures. we have the cap of course the containment cap but the kill process, static kill and bottom kill. static kill might take place in the coming days but the bottom kill will take a couple days. or weeks perhaps to the end of the month.
operation from when they originally planned it, it was going to be on sunday and now it looks like monday or tuesday, possibly tuesday before they are able to get to that. the static kill procedure is where they go to the containment cap and they inject a combination of mud and cement which they call the static kill, because the oil is static, not able to get out because of the containment cap itself. that s step one. the second step, as you well know, is what they call the bottom kill. they use their relief well and go horizontally into the source of the oil and fire another injection of both cement and mud. that should really kill off the well all together. at least that s the plan. the thing is, we are looking at monday or tuesday for the static kill. the state of louisiana did get good news in the last 24 hours. the commercial fishermen have been given the okay to go back to the water, to the job that they know and love. that is a very important
a week ago we were dealing with bonnie. it was the remnants of a tropical storm but enough of a stir to cause a silt on the ocean floor to sink boo the relief well. before they are able to proceed with the static kill operation, they have to clean out all the silt, all the sand out of the relief well. they expect it to be a minor operation but it is something that s going to cause a bit of a delay. we do have animation we re going of show you in mere seconds. one thing we re going to be seeing in terms of this is once it s removed they will proceed with the thing that they refer to as the static kill operation. what s a static kill operation? a static kill operation is basically where they re going to inject a combination of mud and cement into the containment cap itself. and that s going to stop the flow of oil. obviously we have the cap in place but you need something more, and that static kill is going to stop that. if you do a great job at the static kill, then they re going to be
a delay in the static kill operation. the static kill operation, you will remember, is basically when they go into the containment cap and inject a combination of mud and cement that kills off the top part of the well. that s only one part of the process. the second process is something that s going to come in the middle of august or perhaps towards the end of the month which they refer tos at as the bottom kill operation. they go through the relief well and inject the mud. back to you. reynolds, what about the cleanup? we have been talking about killing this well and things seem to be going well in that aspect at least. what about the actual cleanup? we were talking a few days ago, people are having a hard time finding oil, even. absolutely. right now, i can tell you just by aerial observation, they are having a very, very difficult time finding the thick streams of oil that they had. really, they were so easy to see about about a month or so ago. there has been a limited presence
wells. relief wells are crucial to employing what they refer to as the bottom kill that will kill off the well all together. but before they can get to the static kill which was expected to take place possibly later tomorrow, then into monday, that s been pushed back to probably tuesday at the earliest. the reason is they first have to remove that sand and silt out of the relief well before they get to that process. they think that should be a fairly easy endeavor. then they ll proceed toward the static kill which basically they plan on going into the containment cap and injecting a combination of both mud and cement. that should steel off the top of the cap permanently. then the idea is to go to the secondary procedure called the bottom kill where they actually go down into one of the relief wells and inject horizontally the combination of both mud and see meant a cement and kill off the well all together. with these minor complications there is again that question people have had, is