HOW MUCH HAS SPILLED SINCE HE WAS TOLD TO CLOSE IT WITH A NUKE?:

How fast will the Gulf bounce back from the BP oil spill?: Like a giant industrial strength washing machine, the Gulf of Mexico will clean up most of the BP oil spill by itself, as it has other big spills. But environmental resilience has its limits. (Patrik Jonsson, 7/14/10, CS Monitor)

More than 4 million gallons of sweet Louisiana crude oil has likely spilled into the Gulf during the BP oil spill. President Obama has called it the worst ecological disaster in US history, rivaling the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989, which killed 35,000 birds and nearly destroyed commerce in Alaska's Prince William Sound. [...]

Based on past oil spills in the Gulf, including the 1979 Ixtoc rig disaster that spilled 3 million gallons of crude in shallower waters off Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico, scientists say the Gulf's warm, agitating, bacteria-filled waters have a remarkable ability to chomp through even the toughest crude. It's also a place where hurricanes can drive oil inland, but storms can also drag oil off beaches to be refined at sea by natural processes.