give this a shot right at noon eastern time and that is 11:00 local. what they plan on doing is using what we ve been referring in the last couple of days a fire-proof burn. they ved onnered it and they ve obtained it. what the game plan is is go to the oil slick. remember, 97% of this is like a rainbow sheen, but there s about 3% of it which is this thick crude. the idea is to skim away the thicker crude and separate it from the rest of the oily mass and set that afire. i don t want to sound like it will be some haphazard measure, pardon me for a moment while i get the papers. what they re going to do is it will be a very controlled burn. control is the key phrase because highly flammable content that you is across the water that they re trying to separate the crude away from the other parts and when it comes to the rainbow sheen we ve been referring to, that is going to be handled mostly by mother nature because the sun s radiating energies can help burn
to stop the huge oil slick in the gulf of mexico. the coast guard plans to set part of it on fire. with me on the phone is coast guard commander richard schulze in louisiana. commander schulz, good to talk to crowe. any time. describe what you re attempting to do today. i understand you have a couple of elements here. there is that rainbow sheen of oil that maybe nature will take care of and then there is the heavier crude. is it the heavier crude that you will attempt to burn off at the top of the hour? right, yes. that s correct. it will be the heavier crude that we will attempt to burn off some time hopefully this morning and it s just another tool to use in our arsenal of collaborative response with our partners and bp. would you attempt to do this controlled burn somewhere near the open valve? oh, no, no. not at all. what happens is we take a portion of the oil away from the
a massive oil slick in the gulf of mexico now moving closer to the coast. only about 20 miles away so the coast guard has a plan fire. cnn s reynolds wolf live in venice, louisiana, this morning right there on the tip out in the gulf. hey, reynolds. reporter: hey, kyra. you know, the whole idea about doing this sounds like it would be pretty simple, doesn t it, just to clean it up by just throwing a match out there. let s be careful here. i mean, this could be a potentially dangerous situation. they re handling it in a careful way. the way they go through this method is use something called a fire boom, like an aquatic fence, and they re going to take this about 1,000 feet of it from the state of texas, they re going to use this in this endeavor. and what they ll do is take off just the crude, not the rainbow sheen, which will dissipate on its own, but take some of the crude and pull it off and then just do a controlled burn. but it s something they have to
to the south, and there s one area about 20 miles, extreme southern tip of the state, 20 miles from that oil slick, which is one of the things they re trying hard to protect as well as the gulf coast. but, again, the sight from high above was pretty interesting. at times it was very difficult to see because of the angle of the sun coming in. but at times we could get closer, drop down to about 500 feet, and you could see it plain as day, very thick oil in some places they ll have to skim off. but the other thing, the rainbow sheen, much of that will disperse just with the sun s radiant energy. that will burn off naturally, and that is some good news. yeah. reynolds wolf following all this for us, thanks so much. exxon valdez 1989, 1993, ten million gallons of crude oil, still considered the most disastrous ecological situation. that was huge. the terrible. are the winds going to push the oil ashore? let s get the latest from rob
out there as they are trying to look for these 11 people. and the hopes are dimming a little bit this morning. i want to ask about the environmental impact. there are concerns this could be a major disaster. what is the latest on how much oil you re dealing with and whether or not there are concerns about leaking from inside the well? we are very much leaning forward in a response post tour. we have a one mile by five-mile rainbow sheen and crude oil mix that we ve been actively skimming. that is leftover residual from the incident yesterday. we are doing 24/7, we have a remotely operated vehicle that we re getting a visual feed in the command center and monitoring the subsurface and the well head to ensure there is no crude leaking from the ocean floor. what s the status of that at