the leak is spilling about 42,000 gallons of oil into the gulf each day. that's 1,000 barls. the cause is still a mystery. the good news, such as it is, is that the situation could have been much worse. right now the spill is not heading towards shore too much. you can actually see the oil spill in this video. at its current rate, it would have to continue for 262 days to reach the 11 million-gallon spill from the ex son valdez in 1989. but that's not something we want to aim for. this diagram gives you an idea of what's being done right now to try and plug it up. robot subs are trying to trigger a so-called blowout preventer, which by the way, may have been the reason this thing exploded in the first place, the blowout preventer may have failed. if they can trigger it, it would seal off the well. that could take 24 to 36 hours. now, here's the problem. if those efforts to do that fail, the other alternative, as