franzen. explain what happens next. another layer of redundancy pouring in cement in the same place where that poured that mud down. another insurance policy to ensure that that well will not leak again. and national incident commander thad allen had said that they gave bp the go ahead, as long as it doesn t interfere with the end all and that is the relief well, to make sure that is plugged. that is still on track to be finished up, hopefully, by mid-august. but, certainly, it will not take care of the long term impact. not only on the environment, but also for residents here in the gulf coast. along the gulf coast a new study out by the university, one of the university, columbia university mailman school shows that a survey of 1,200 coastal residents found that nearly a third of children showed signs of physical or mental effects from the spill, such as respi t respiratory problems and then
bp indicated they might move that to sunday night. we re watching that very closely. it will probably be five to seven days after that that they can drill from the bottom. still another 100 feet to go on the relief well. and are you confident that this is going to work? suzanne, this is not a novel type of technology. intercept wells are drilled routinely. it is novel at the depth that we re at and the intercept wells, you know, at the extreme depths that we re at but this is not new technology. our science team in houston, working with the bp engineers, had external validation and we re optimistic we ll be able to do this. despite the fact that it s not new and you are optimistic, are there risks involved? is there a chance something could go wrong in the next five days? well, i think the first thing we re going to be concerned about when we put the mud down the top of the well, if there s a precipitous drop in pressure that would indicate we ve got a problem with the well cas
final pipe casing right now, suzanne, and when they do that and get it cemented in they will go with a static kill. that will happen late sunday or monday. they will put mud down the top of the well that s heavier than the oil that s there right now and hopefully fill the well up. we ll still need to drill in from the bottom and kill the well from the bottom but at this point it looks like we ll be able to move ahead. we ve got good well integrity and trying to move forward it s a positive turn. does this mean this will be completely capped and sealed, that we re now at final stage of resolving this? suzanne, it will take both the static kill from the top which will fill the well pipe itself and drilling in from the bottom and filling it from the bottom up and filling it with cement which will finally plug the well and when that happens we ll announce that the well has officially been killed, yes. how soon do you think that will happen? we originally said monday for the static
of july, that is ahead of target but admiral thad allen thinks first or mid august is when it finally can be cemented shut them. deepest well, now 17,840 feet and according to bp s ceo, still 100 feet to go for the point of interception. but it is slow-going here at the final stages because they have to take magnetic readings to tell whether they are flush on the bull s-eye to intercept and bore into the existing well, put the mud down, cement it shut for good. but, of course, once that is done and there is no more oil gushing into the gulf of mexico, we are now like approaching 66 hours, since no new oil gushed into the gulf, don t forget, we still have 94 to 184 million gallons estimated to be already out there. and that is going to make months to clean up. eric: and you know, that is fantastic news they can actually get the relief well done by the end of the month. and you talk about 66 hours, of