Oil's Well That Doesn't End Well For This Oil Well, Part 20

Now the worst environmental disaster in American history by more than a few measurements.

A Taiwanese supertanker skimmed oil from the Gulf of Mexico Saturday as the months-long disaster became the worst accidental spill on record.

Rough seas and strong winds continued to delay clean-up efforts, displace protective booms and push the oil deeper into fragile coastal wetlands, endangering wildlife preserves and the thousands of birds nesting there.

"This is going to be a very long and arduous clean-up operation in the days to come," said Coast Guard Admiral Paul Zukunft.

"I'm especially concerned with some of the wildlife habitats."

An estimated 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil per day has been gushing out of the ruptured well since the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon drilling rig sank on April 22, some 50 miles (80 kilometers) off the coast of Louisiana.

A containment system has captured about 557,000 barrels of oil, but rough seas have delayed the deployment of a third vessel which is set to increase capacity from 25,000 barrels to 53,000 barrels a day.

That means an estimated 1.9 to 3.6 million barrels -- or 79.5 to 153 million gallons -- of oil has now gushed into the Gulf.

Using the high end of that estimate, the spill has now surpassed the 1979 Ixtoc blowout which took nine months to cap and dumped an estimated 3.3 million barrels (140,000 million gallons) into the Gulf of Mexico.

Still no relief in sight.  Still weeks, months, perhaps longer until this thing can be contained.  Still untold damage to Gulf Coast states, to the people that live there and make their living off the ocean, and to the wildlife.

All of it preventable and unnecessary.