[caveman]

What about parking like 5 to 10 tankers around the plume and have them start sucking "hehe hehe". and then turn on the filters and dump off the filtered water? yeah sure they will fill up quick but quite possibly be a lot less oil rolling across the water to the LA marshes and beaches. I am no oil engineer but there has to be something that could have been put in place to mitigate this disaster.