to stop the leaks once and for all. let s get back to the coast and cnn s david mattingly, he joins us from the venice community in louisiana. david, what is the latest now? reporter: well, don, we re getting our first confirmation today of oil impacting land. that has happened at a place called freemason island. it s a small island, the southernmost in the chandlur island chains. it s sensitive areas for nesting birds and everyone sensitive hoping to protect the islands. three crews have been sent out, two of them on water and one by air. they will be assessing what they have to work with there. they re going to be reproviding the booms that were supposed to be working there and they will deploy more booms if needed. so at this point it appear the oil, the booms may have moved or something where they had them anchored, oil was able to get through. we don t know how much. we don t know if it was that sheen we ve been talking about or if it was the heavier oil
this is an engineering feat that has never been tried at this depth with this large of a device, and it s really going to be something new. everyone hoping it works, it works the first time, because they didn t make two of these large containers. they re going to try and make this work the first time. and if they do, they will be able to collect, they say, 80% to 85% of the leaking oil, which would be a huge relief to the environmental damage that s being done out here. you re reading my thoughts. the next question i have for you, it s only one, if it doesn t work, what else? we hope it does. we ll have to see. thank you very much, david mattingly joining us from louisiana down in the gulf coast. are they the answer to the country s education problem or just a fly in the ointment? we re taking a closer look at charter schools.