74% of BP oil spill cleaned up; remaining 26% is still 4x larger than Exxon Valdez

As always, good news if true.

The government is expected to announce on Wednesday that three-quarters of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon leak has already evaporated, dispersed, been captured or otherwise eliminated — and that much of the rest is so diluted that it does not seem to pose much additional risk of harm.

A government report finds that about 26 percent of the oil released from BP’s runaway well is still in the water or onshore in a form that could, in principle, cause new problems. But most is light sheen at the ocean surface or in a dispersed form below the surface, and federal scientists believe that it is breaking down rapidly in both places.

The Guardian makes a good point about that remaining 24%:

The volume of the remaining oil, however, is still more than four times larger than the amount lost from the Exxon Valdez tanker in 1989.