NEW ORLEANS

There are few people who can claim direct knowledge of the ocean floor, at least before the invention of the spill-cam, last year's strangely compulsive live feed of the oil billowing out of BP's blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico. But for Samantha Joye it was familiar terrain. The intersection of oil, gas and marine life in the Mississippi Canyon has preoccupied the University of Georgia scientist for years. So one year after an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig, about 40 miles off the coast of Louisiana, killed 11 men and disgorged more than 4m barrels of crude, Joye could be forgiven for denying the official version of the BP oil disaster that life is returning to normal in the Gulf.

The view from her submarine is different, and her attachment is almost personal. On her descent to a location 10 miles from BP's well in December, Joye landed on an ocean floor coated with dark brown muck about 4cm deep. Thick ropes of slime draped across coral like cobwebs in a haunted house. The few creatures that remained alive, such as the crabs, were too listless to flee. "Most of the time when you go at them with a submarine, they just run," she says. "They weren't running, they were just sitting there, dazed and stupefied. They certainly weren't behaving as normal." Her conclusion? "I think it is not beyond the imagination that 50% of the oil is still floating around out there."

Federal regulators on Friday gave Statoil permission to drill a deep-water well - the 10th project approved since such work was halted after last year's Gulf spill.

Under the permit, Statoil will be allowed to drill a new well in 7,813 feet of water in its Logan prospect, 219 miles off the Louisiana shoreline, south of Houma. The Norwegian oil company is slated to drill the well with the Discoverer Americas, a Transocean drillship that is en route back to the Gulf of Mexico from Egyptian waters.
It is the second post-spill deep-water project Statoil has gotten approved. The company also won approval for a well in its Cobra prospect 216 miles south of Texas City on March 25.
Statoil contracted with the Houston-based Helix Well Containment Group to meet requirements that it show how it will respond to any blowout at the Cobra project. It has contracted the competing Marine Well Containment Co. for the new Logan prospect well - becoming the first operator to contract with both containment companies on separate Gulf drilling projects.

Robotic submarines working a mile underwater removed a leaking cap from the gushing Gulf oil well Saturday, starting a painful trade-off: Millions more gallons of crude will flow freely into the sea for at least two days until a new seal can be mounted to capture all of it.
There's no guarantee for such a delicate operation deep below the water's surface, officials said, and the permanent fix of plugging the well from the bottom remains slated for mid-August.

As you can see, birds are hit hardest (or most often discovered). So we headed to the International Bird Rescue's Buras, LA operation, where they take many of the oiled pelicans, gulls, and terns.

Most of the birds spend 2-3 weeks in recovery and they spend the first week very stressed out due to all the human handling. Because of the stress, the Bird Rescue Center often let the bird rest 5 days or so before they begin the cleaning process. Then the oiled birds get washed with Dawn dish soap, hosed with water, and treated with tender care by a team of vet techs. I asked Bruce Miller with U.S. Fish & Wildlife whether he thought these birds were getting better health care than many Americans and responded diplomatically, saying he leaves ideologies at the door and does his job, which is to save these birds. (The people at the Buras facility could not give an estimated price per bird but it cost an estimated $15,000 per marine bird for the 627 birds released after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill).

The brown pelicans have a strong likelihood if survivorship if they can be rescued and cleaned. Their delisting from the U.S. Endangered Species List last November positioned them to be an icon of success of banning DDT and protecting bird habitat. However, the Gulf oil spill is impacting their numbers (an estimated 16,000 nesting pairs along the Louisiana coast) and their nesting sites, which has sparked talks of a relisting. The gulls have also been doing well at the rescue center but not the terns, who are picky eaters and more sensitive to stress.

When asked what made this spill different, Mark Russell of IBRRC said, "it's everywhere". I asked about what would happen with the incoming migratory birds. "We don't even want to talk about them," Russell said.

A lot of people want to volunteer. It's important to realize that BP is obligated to pay for the clean-up so they have hired a gang of recently graduated vet techs. In terms of donations, it's better, Russell said, to give to local wildlife rehabilitation centers that work on these issues year round and don't get high profile exposure.

NOAA has opened more than 8,000 square miles of previously closed fishing area in the Gulf of Mexico, because the agency has not observed oil in the area. The most significant opening is an area due south of Mississippi which was closed Monday, June 21.

Additionally, some smaller areas were opened off the Louisiana and central Florida coasts.