BP Oil Disaster: Containment Cap Reattached; Two Involved in Clean-Up Die, One a Suicide
June 23, 2010 — -- BP says it has reattached the containment cap that was knocked off the Gulf oil leak in a submarine accident earlier Wednesday.
Oil from the BP spill disaster had been spewing again into the Gulf of Mexico at nearly full force after a venting system connected to the so-called containment cap over the blown-out wellhead was damaged in an accident with a robot sub, said Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the commander in charge of the government's effort to control the 65-day-old spill.
The cap "was successfully reinstalled on the Deepwater Horizon's failed blow-out preventer" at 6:30 p.m. local time, BP said in a statement, adding that "the system resumed collecting oil and gas" a half hour later.
Separately, Allen said two people tied to the clean-up died over the past day in the Gulf region. One of the deaths was of a charter boat captain who apparently committed suicide, depressed as his business suffered after the blowout, ABC News has confirmed.
William Kruse, 55, a charter boat captain recently hired by BP as a vessel of opportunity out of Gulf Shores, Ala., died Wednesday morning of a gunshot to the head, likely self-inflicted, according to Stan Vinson, the local coroner.
Vinson said Kruse had apparently been despondent after the spill spread and ruined his business. Gulf Shores police were investigating.
The other death "was an accident regarding a swimming pool, a swimming event," Allen said.
The two deaths were the first related to the accident since 11 workers died on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in April.
Allen said the remote-controlled sub bumped into the venting system connected to the containment cap. That sent gas rising through the plumbing that sends warm water down to the cap to prevent solid crystals -- known as hydrates -- from forming in the cap.
Before today's mishap, Allen said the apparatus had collected about 700,000 gallons of oil in the previous 24 hours. Another 438,000 gallons were burned.
As many as 14 controlled fires are being conducted every day, and they've already burned 125,000 barrels that otherwise would have drifted toward shore. At the site of the accident, two tankers have been collecting oil siphoned up from the containment cap. And huge ocean skimmers, the largest of their kind, have been scooping up 8,000 barrels of oil per day.
The current worst-case estimate of what's spewing into the Gulf is about 2.5 million gallons a day.
