ROBERT, La. – Thousands of response personnel continue working to protect the shoreline and minimize the environmental impact of the April 20, 2010, Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill.

More than 16,000 response personnel, 12,000 volunteers, 1,200 vessels and 60 aircraft are working to clean oil along the Gulf Coast.

Additional response personnel and equipment are being pre-positioned in areas where modeling and aerial surveillance indicate a greater potential for shoreline impact.

Shoreline Cleanup and Assessment Teams, along with teams using booms, are already deployed along potentially affected shorelines.  More than three million feet of boom is in place and crews are rapidly removing oil from the shoreline with shovels and rakes.  Shoreline Cleanup and Assessment Team personnel are overseeing and evaluating response efforts to ensure the oil is removed with the most environmentally responsible methods.

Skimming vessels have recovered more than 260,000 barrels of oily water mixture.  Additional strategies include the application of dispersant and controlled burn operations to stop oil offshore.  On Monday, crews conducted 14 controlled burns for nearly 12 hours bringing the response total to 53 burns and 62,000 barrels of oil removed.

Anyone who locates oil on the shore should avoid contact and report the sighting to (866) 448-5816. For information about the response effort, visit www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com.

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