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Feds: Gulf oil leak could be contained by Monday.

Do we believe this story as we believed the rest… Junk Shots and containment caps and robots bumping into things with their big robotic asses. Or do we put our faith in the Feds? Seriously? 80+ days into this environmental disaster, we are supposed to just take the word that it ends unceremoniously on Monday July 12, 2010.

I’m going to take the leap and hope for the best, but there is a part of me, that is so skeptical moving forward. Its the same hope I had yesterday pre-9pm LeBron that he would be good and right and stay in Cleveland versus the post-9pm LeBron which had trouble wiping the blood off the knife he pulled out of Clevelands back. Part of me knew this was going to happen, just like I won’t be surprised, but in the same sense, saddened, when the BP/Feds/MMS/Transocean/Haliburton members botch this and it allows for more oil to spew unrelentlessly into the Gulf of Mexico.

Here is the article, via the Sarasota Herald Tribune, written by The Associated Press

The federal official leading the Gulf oil spill cleanup said Friday a new containment cap and an additional ship collecting oil could effectively contain the spill in the next three days.

The work to replace a leaky containment cap on the well head with a tighter one will begin Saturday, National Incident Commander Thad Allen said Friday. At the same time, a ship connecting to a different part of the leak is expected to come online Sunday.

Oil will flow unimpeded into the Gulf during the cap switch for at least part of the weekend.

If all goes according to plan, the combination of the cap and the new vessel could collect all the leaking oil by Monday. Work continues on what officials hope will be the ultimate solution: a pair of relief wells intercepting the leaking well far below the seafloor.

The new containment cap is expected to form a better seal over the well head, to allow more of the oil to be collected and sent up to ships on the surface for collection or burning.

“Technically it’s pretty achievable,” Allen said. He said if the new cap can’t be placed on the well, the old cap will be put back and there are multiple backup caps available in case any one cap fails.

The new, tighter cap should be in place early Monday. Allen said the ship Helix Producer, which is to be hooked to a different part of the leaking well — lower than the new cap — will start collecting oil Sunday and be fully operational Tuesday. He has previously said that the full system should be able to collect 60,000 to 80,000 barrels a day.

For the full article, click here <—–