Page 2 - Cement Plug News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

From the well will leak into the gulf of mexico. they are going to put -- they are as an insurance move, they are going to pour cement, the same way they did with the mud, down the top of the well and put a cement plug at the top of the well. however, they have to do the relief well. thad allen said all along if they plug the well at the top, they have to plug it from the bottom because it is only then when he will consider this well permanently shut in. rachel? >> nbc news chief environmental affairs correspondent, anne thompson, braving the heat and the humidity and the bugs at this late hou...

So for all practical purposes right now, this well is dead. what they're going to do now is look at how they're going to cap this well. they're talking about applying cement from the top now to create a plug at the top with cement. this will augment the plans they already have in motion to finish that relief well, to intersect the bp well sometime later this month and fill it up with cement, creating a cement plug down below, as well. so now at this point, the well, for all practical purposes, has been killed. and now they're just sealing it off so it will never, ever be a problem again. >> an...

The next phase, the bottom kill or final kill as many are calling it. with the relief wells they have bern working on for the last few months, they are hoping to put a cement plug in there as early as thursday that could be finished by mid august. >> michelle, thank you very much. the government has reopened patches of fishing waters around louisiana and even declared seafood from some parts of the gulf safe to eat. both the fda and state of louisiana have been testing the fish and barely found traces of toxins. my big question today, when will families feel safe eating gulf coast seafood. i'd...

The mud will not push this oil back, but if that happens, they have the fail safe mechanism ready to go where they are drilling that relief well about a week from now where they will intersect that bp well and then begin filling it up with cement. a huge cement stopper to end the threat once and for all, and the procedure will have the same effect in killing the well, but because of the caution they have instituteded in proceeding with killing this well, they say it is not going to be done until that relief well is finished, and they have that cement plug in place. >> we will keep our fingers ...

Better sense now of just what went wrong. let's walk to the magic wall and get a sense. congressional hearings, other hearings down in the region starting to put together some of the pieces of just what happened. one point of inquiry is right here, the cement plug. they were pouring down cement from the rig into its ground, part of the effort to cap it to change this from an exploration to ultimately an oil drill aring platform. cement was being poured into this. there was a problem with the mixing of the cement it didn't quite take. one point worth noting, the government is working of on new ...