It’s already the worst ecological disaster in U.S. history, and the oil spill continues to dump somewhere between 504,000 and 4.2 million gallons of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico. BP will continue to try to plug that hole, but its best chance to succeed is the drilling of relief wells, a process that won’t be finished until at least August.

Did we mention that hurricane season kicks off Tuesday and it’s expected to be a nasty one?

AP via Google:

Still, the three months it could take to finish the relief wells — the first of which started May 2 — is quicker than a typical deep well, which can take four months or longer, said Tad Patzek, chair of the Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering Department at the University of Texas-Austin. BP already has a good picture of the different layers of sand and rock its drill bits will meet because of the work it did on the blown-out well.

On the slim chance the relief well doesn’t work, scientists weren’t sure exactly how much — or how long — the oil would flow. The gusher would continue until the well bore hole collapsed or pressure in the reservoir dropped to a point where oil was no longer pushed to the surface, Patzek said.

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