Hobbies And Interests
Floating Booms
Cleanup crews used floating booms to help contain the oil. These long tube-like structures were made from hard plastic and acted as a kind of floating fence to help corral the oil and stop it from spreading. Once the oil was contained by booms, Coast Guard vessels equipped with mechanical skimmers tried to take up as much of it as possible. Similar absorbent booms are designed for use along shorelines, where they can soak up oil rather than merely containing it.
ROVs
In order to deal with the spill, BP needed to do more than contain the oil -- they needed to stop the leak. The well had originally been equipped with a blowout preventer, a device that ought to have prevented the catastrophic explosion. Unfortunately, since the blowout preventer was on the seabed some 5,000 feet below the surface, it was beyond a depth that divers could access. BP used remote-operated vehicles to try to repair the blowout preventer and shut off the flow of oil, but to no avail.
Dome and Straw
BP also attempted to insert a long narrow pipe (sometimes dubbed a "straw") into the riser, the pipe that connected the well to the rig. This also failed, as did BP's efforts to cap the well with a 125-ton dome made from steel and concrete and maneuvered into position by ROVs. The failure of the dome was thanks to the formation of methane hydrates, solids containing methane trapped by frozen water, which clogged up the tube meant to extract the leaking oil.
Top Kill
BP also tried to pump mud down into the well to plug it up, an approach called a "top kill." This tactic failed as well. Ultimately, the leak was finally plugged by a cap similar to the earlier containment dome but better designed. Drilling relief bores and pumping more mud and cement down helped to alleviate pressure on the cap and keep it intact, and a pipe connecting the cap with the surface helped to collect oil from the well.