BP will Install New Cap on Well; Dive Beneath the Oil Spill
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN HOST ANCHOR: Good evening again from the Gulf. Anderson Cooper is off tonight. I'm Sanjay Gupta. By now, this live picture is familiar, way too familiar in the worst kind of way. The Macondo well still gushing a mile below the water's surface 81 days into this spill; BP still making promises to contain and collect the oil. We're "Keeping Them Honest". And, today, the head of the federal response, Admiral Thad Allen, said BP will begin replacing the leaking well's containment cap tomorrow with a larger, more permanent one. Now, if it works, the new cap, we're told, will collect more oil than the old one. But could it also potentially cause some new problems? A real concern and Tom Foreman joining me now to explain how this just all might work -- Tom.</s>TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Sanjay. These are the big things to watch for this weekend. Right now, what you have on this well is a containment cap right down here which is collecting some oil. You have seen the pictures of it all time with the oil gushing out from it around the sides. That's because there are vents which are open in the sides here to let some oil out, so they don't have too much pressure to just blow it off, because it's just sitting there. But that's what's happening right now. And that oil is coming up to a ship above here. They also have some oil coming out of a vent in the side here up to another ship. And, this weekend, they're trying to move another ship into place. They're hoping to maybe even add a fourth. Overall, this will increase the containment of oil here from right now around 23,000 barrels a day to hopefully 50,000 barrels a day. But that brings us to the other important thing to watch this weekend. They're going to replace the cap here. I want to show you a close picture of that. Right now, the cap is collecting some of the oil. They're going to take this cap away. And that's going to release the oil entirely for a while. So, initially, it's going to be an increase of oil from that part of it. Then they're going to bring in what they hope is a tighter cap, that they can bolt into place and really seal down. When that happens, Sanjay, they think they might be able to say that they truly get almost complete containment. They got some vents in that that they are going to play with, too, see if they can get complete containment. Those are the major things happening this weekend, Sanjay.</s>GUPTA: And such an important point again, you know, those vents, it's like -- someone explained it like shaking up a bottle and trying to cap it. The cap will just blow off unless you can slowly vent out. And what you're describing sounds promising. And the admiral's comments sounded promising today. But is there something that could go wrong with this? Is there a possible concern there?</s>FOREMAN: Yes, there are several concerns here. First of all, what if -- you bring this thing down here. This blowout preventer we're dealing with is not perfectly straight. We have shown it here that it's a little bit crooked. There's always been a worry about how stable this is. This could fall over. You could have an uncontained spill altogether. What if you can't get this part to fit? They had a hard time the first time. Then where are you? And just as importantly in all of that, Sanjay, is, look at this. What if, while you're trying to do this, you have a big storm system come brewing in from the sides? If that happens, all collection has to cut loose. All the ships have to go away. And you wind the well just emptying out here maybe for days, maybe for weeks, as long as it takes to get back to the game -- Sanjay.</s>GUPTA: Tom, good -- good description there. There's some good weather here, Tom. I don't know if you can see behind us. But it's been the first sort of break in the weather for some time, which why I think the admiral was optimistic. We will certainly keep tabs on that. We also got some new pictures tonight of the oil disaster, this time from beneath the waves. Suiting up in special hazmat suits, Amber Lyon and cameraman Rich Brooks braved the contaminated water at a spot that was once popular with divers. Some remarkable footage, and they -- they join me now. Thanks for joining us, guys. I know you have had quite a day. I want to -- you guys were actually able to be live from underwater. And I want to ask you in a second how you did that. But, Amber, you were able to get a view today of life below the surface. We're used to seeing oil a mile down and on the surface. What's it like where you were?</s>AMBER LYON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Sanjay, you know, the thing about it is, above all, we wanted to show what's going on underneath the water with all of these dispersants. You know, they break up the oil into little-bitty pieces. And it literally was like that. When we went under the water, you would just see pieces and pieces of oil all around you, especially on our last dive, where we literally had to go through a film of oil to get down into there. And then you would get down below the water and you would look up and you could see a film of the dispersants above you. And I think that's the big thing here, the -- kind of the new phase to this oil spill. Especially today out on the water, we saw that. We weren't seeing as many huge patches of oil on the surface, but we were seeing a lot of oil underneath the surface. And, as many people have said, this is kind of a science experiment.</s>GUPTA: Right.</s>LYON: They're saying that putting dispersants in the water is the lesser of two evils. But some scientists are also saying, is it really the lesser of two evils when we don't really know the long-term effects of a dispersant-crude mixture on humans, or animals, for that matter?</s>GUPTA: Right. Right.</s>LYON: And that's why you saw us in those hazmat suits today, Sanjay.</s>GUPTA: Well, you are a diver, I assume, Amber, to have done something like this. The marine life, you know, people dive recreationally so they can see the marine life. What was it like? I mean, did you see much?</s>LYON: Well, one thing that concerned our boat captain was that, on the way out there, we didn't see a lot of bait fish. They say they normally see bait fish that live in the upper water column. And those just were not there. So, that concerned them. But when we were in the water, we did see saw some sharks swimming around us. And so that was a good sign to see them alive. Besides that, though, we didn't really see anything but cloudy water. There was not a lot of life going on down there, Sanjay.</s>GUPTA: Right. Amber, I'm glad you said that seeing sharks was a good sign. I think most people might not totally agree with you on that. But let me bring in Rich for a second here. Rich, this is amazing. I know you and I have been talking about this. You were able to get a live shot from underwater, in the middle of an oil spill. People are fascinated by that from a technology standpoint. Can you tell us a little bit just how you did that?</s>RICH BROOKS, CNN PHOTOJOURNALIST: Well, we had our EX1 camera in an Equinox housing. And we had a video cable up to the surface going over to our professor, Phil Littleton (ph), with our marine tracking</s>LYON: I got to give Rich a lot of credit, Sanjay --</s>LYON: -- because we're down there -- we're down there right now. When we were underwater doing the live, Philippe and I were able to hold on to a rope with our hands. So, we had stability.</s>GUPTA: Right.</s>LYON: But Rich has to hold on with both hands to the camera and float there underwater.</s>GUPTA: It's remarkable.</s>LYON: And he did an amazing job. So, he really helped make this happen for us.</s>GUPTA: Well, great work, both of you, not only from the middle of the ocean, but under the ocean literally. Rich, by the way, I'm going to buy you some sunscreen. Doctor's orders, you got to wear it next time, all right? Thanks a lot, guys.</s>BROOKS: It was very hot out there.</s>GUPTA: Appreciate it.</s>BROOKS: And I did have sunscreen on.</s>GUPTA: I know.</s>BROOKS: But it didn't work very well.</s>GUPTA: All right.</s>LYON: Take care, Sanjay.</s>GUPTA: Well, thanks again. Great works, guys.</s>BROOKS: Take care.</s>GUPTA: Thanks so much. People at the breaking point: an up-close look at the mental health concerns. For some, the stress of this disaster is just too much for them. Will BP step in and help them out? Also ahead: my conversation with the head of BP's medical response in the Gulf -- remarkable things he said, the surprising things he said about the number of cleanup workers they're actually treating. Plus: making sure the seafood pulled from the waters is safe to eat, a big question. We're going to take you straight inside the government's testing facility. We have got that coming up.