the final cleanup is under way in the gulf of mexico. teams are leaving the area after sealingthe deep horizon oil well. >> today the fight comes to washington. jay gray explains what is next from venice, louisiana. >> reporter: it began april 20th with a massive fireball and deadly flames cutting through the night air. as the deepwater horizorig exploded and collapsed, 11 lives were lost. and oil began to seep into the gulf, e worst spill in u.s. histo. now, 154 days later, government scientists say the final seal, 74 barrels of cement, is holding tight and at the well will never leak again. president obama acknowledged the work that's been done and perhaps the more difficult job that lies ahe in a written statement which says in part, we will continue to work closely with the people of the gulf to rebuildtheir livelihoods and restore the environment that supports them. my administration will see our communities, our businesses and our fragile ecosystems through this difficult time. ifficulties that continue to wash up along the gulf co

current production in the gulf. more flexibility for state and local input and the national contingency plan in area contingency plan. more involvement of states in response is key decision and the last newberger for of course is improved technologies for oil spill response. provide some funding, continued funding for the gulf states for oil spill readiness, their sharing of the mineral these profits or some other mechanism. down to 30 seconds. what went well? i think in the sector mobile shoreline response cleanup operations went well. we responded to the oil that got on the beaches i think it effectively, timely, quickly, what needs improvement? nearshore operation. the skimming, surveillance and a clear plan for tactical control. thank you, commissioner. >> thank you very much, mr. harrell. mr. nungesser. >> thank you very much. if you'll allow me i will skip and just put a bunch of things out of my speech to get it all out. i did provide you with a booklet with everything in there. first of all, there is a group

more updates and an hour up next marks kaiser and stacey have it examined the ongoing crisis in the gulf of mexico or drop us house sales and record temperatures that's all in the kaiser report only here oh no. max kaiser and welcome to the kaiser report controversy swirling a room the world not just dirty corrupt bankers but dirty corrupt rating agencies dirty and corrupt economists who fail to see the big picture as we do on this show we give it to you rob we give it to you straight we give it to you real let's go to states or overseas europe give us some of the real stuff max i have a lot of real stuff first they were real beef with you but i deposited a fifty euro note that you gave me into my bank account yesterday yeah and the whole machine shut down yeah guards came to me and said it was a counterfeit fifty euro note yet now that's the fifty euro note that you gave me ok you're hanging the money you're passing bad bills well speaking of bad bills this is indirectly in my first headline max china's gold demand surge is twenty six percent in q two w g c w g c is the world gold counc

we used gulf of mexico water. because you are doing those same tests and changing the fact that you're using this crude-oil meant that we spent a lot of time in the laboratory at the epa and the contractors devising methods to ensure that we got representative samples. if you are not dispersing the oil, that is not helpful. trying to find the oil disbursed fraction was really important. i think there is a huge amount of science between fuel oil number 2 and prudo bay. i am probably not qualified to speculate. i would want to see a progression before i would agree. the deep sea environment is different. certainly, that is harder to imitate those pressures. and the temperature gradient between the oil. i cannot say it will never happen but i believe the industry will want to look at this tragedy and draw the conclusion that disbursement should be used all the time at up well head. look at how well it worked. i am personally not there yet. i think we had to make a decision and there were other interventions. having t

in the gulf that was because you've got a very very powerful government who really went to town on b.p. but in other areas of the world where they're smaller less powerful governments they've been pushed and pulled around by big oil companies and oil spills another degradation has happened and that's an issue of great concern i think when you take issue with a little bit of what kerry has said. i think there's a little a lot of difference between the indigenous people and the residents of the arctic and people in other places like nigeria the dialogue in the arctic has been good for twenty years and that dialogue has included the residents of the arctic and the indigenous people i don't know any indigenous people in the arctic who would sit back passively and allow an oil company to go forward without stepping up and saying something i see this in alaska with the indigenous people in alaska i see it in canada they are not passive people and they're not afraid to speak up so terry i think. i think there's a little bit that's different in the arctic i would also says are that they i mean

gulf funds at the interest rate, which is variable and changes every year. every year the department works with policymakers. we budget. we start off every fiscal year with the intention of budgeting the full amounts of the payment from golf to the open space fund. supervisor avalos: the full amount would be for the current year? >> for the current year the full amount of payment in the schedule would be over $5.2 million. that is under the assumption that we start off with so many bills on the budget. but over prior years as we know, the fund has needed support from general funds. so, at the end of the day it winds up being something of a negotiation between what they can afford and what the general funding subsidy is, as well as the payment from golf to open space and what it winds up being. again, as you know, the fund was an ordinance, the budget was an ordinance. although the gulf fund it specifies how the payment would be made, as the board approved the budget annually, the payment might be something less than what the fund originally intended.

>> mitchell: tonight an important clue to the cause of the gulf oil spill comes to the surface. what the failed blowout preventer might tell us. >> i'm russ mitchell. also tonight the battle for congress. can democrats do anything to prevent republicans from gaining control of the house and senate? congress is investigating colleges that are run for profit. we'll tell you why. and traffic buster. china's plan to bypass traffic jams that might work in america. captioning sponsored by cbs this is the "cbs evening news" with russ mitchell. >> mitchell: and good evening. it took almost 30 hours but a key piece of evidence in the gulf oil spill is now out of the ocean and on its way to be examined. the blowout preventer, a massive piece of machinery that failed to stop the gusher could hold major clues to preventing future oil spills. tony guida now with more on the device and the investigation. >> reporter: rising slowly from the floor of the gulf of mexico, a one-million pound hunk of yellow metal once attached to an oil well in the gulf. the blowout preventer that did not live up

the gulf fund has various components of all of the golf courses. the manager would be responsible for it. every year, we have a budget of what we think the revenues will be. on our behalf, we reimburse so that there is a net revenue. that is the element we're talking about. we expect what the revenue will be through the budget, and then we see the actual cost. of that difference, 25% would go to the manager. i did a rough analysis of the last three years using actual budget figures. we're still considerably better off financially. after the meeting that i can tell the 28, i specifically said that the document had this rather bold first page. they were subject to a few changes made when i posted the copy of the agreement that you have in your packet. we talked to the city attorney about this. nobody felt the changes made were substantive in nature, most were just for clarification. we clarify the language concerning portions of the agreement. we clarify the language concerning the incentives. the only added language was a short paragraph which actua

drilling because we have the gulf. tragedy and this is you know far as i understand deeper colder. is that they have the technology in your opinion to be able to do that because there's a huge safety element there we've never we've seen what it did to alaska and i think alaska still recovering when we are still recovering the oil spill in prince william sound in the mid eighty's was a shock to many people how could a tragedy like this occur in such a pristine beautiful place from the eighty's oil spill the exxon valdez oil spill alaska learned a lot about environmental regulations being prepared unfortunately it appears that other places in the world didn't learn with this and do we see the spill in the gulf of mexico. for alaskans this was this was a tragedy because we had already learned the lessons you come prepared when you work offshore. the spill prevention plans that were turned in by the oil companies had statements in it about protecting walruses though the last time i checked there are no walruses in the gulf of mexico so they're here to do cut and paste and really i thin

literally i think they have cut and paste and i think that's the tragedy of the of the gulf of mexico oil spill was that we learned a lesson in alaska that never got transferred which you know that the thing is terry if i can go back to you real quickly. learned learning curve for environmental protection is probably a lot of flatter than greed and again greed drives a lot of things ok i mean still going in there i mean view for see that i mean you think that you know they learned their lesson of the oil industry in their lesson i learned a lesson or other just going to have to keep you know this trying to do their best i mean they said they did everything they could in the gulf and we saw what happened there what i'm saying is that environmental issues are going to stop these oil companies. no i don't know i don't think they are i mean the exxon valdez was a tanker running aground in alaska i mean that's quite different from drilling for oil in the gulf of mexico or anywhere else but what was so shocking about that report that came out i mean the only real report that's come out was

i think the next police in the gulf of mexico is not scheduled until sometime in 2011. as we crack down program going forward, we will make whatever adjustments are necessitated from what we are learning from this process. we have counseled one of the lease sales which was supposed to go forward in the last month, i think. >> yes. as the secretary referenced, the secretary has asked for a supplemental environmental impact statement to be done because obviously this spill has had an impact on the gulf. of the question is that environmental analysis should go forward before the next sale occurs. to some extent, we will see how long that takes, but the secretary is committed to having good science, good environmental review to inform the timing of leasing sales. >> part of the reason for asking that question is that in the last panel, we had one analyst commenting about some resistance that his organization had encountered in their research while the spill was still on going. i cite that as a specific example of some of the kinds of things that need to be considered for in

then you have this unplanned continues situation in the gulf. this may have put a strain on your resources. how has the coast guard learned to deal with this? >> i am very grateful for the resources we have. the country has invested heavily in the coast guard since september 11, 2001. we have up to 40 two thousand people. the people alone give us a greater capacity -- we have about 42,000 people. the people alone give us a greater capacity to do these things. in the case of haiti, we had ships that were already deployed down there, either on counter- drug mission or alien migration missions. it was easy for us to flip the switch overnight and deploy them to force parents -- to port-au- prince harbor. i do not think we will ever have enough resources to do every mission 100%. that is where our job comes in, based on our experience, throughout our career, we used our party's -- we use our sense of priority on any given day. >> in terms of homeland security, what do you see as your role in that arena? >> we are very confident. we have 11 statutory

the estimate was about four point one million barrels of oil were dumped into the gulf another. a hundred thousand were removed either by saipan ng or skimming it up the surface ok so now you add the correct and the net effect is is it more toxicity or less toxicity well after the spill began and after that b.p. had already dumped quite a bit of this chemical into the gulf we undertook their own investigation of this they've been releasing this data over the last few months now basically determined that the chemicals didn't make any more toxic than the oil alone but obviously didn't help the situation ok so it seems. irresponsible to say the least for a company to simply sail into the gulf of mexico and dump two million gallons of carex it into the water for basically a photo op you've got the president i stays down there i guess posing in front of some shrimp and claiming that everything it's ok it's ok to go in the water reminds me of the movie jaws where the other meryl was forced to stand in for the water and say it's ok to go in here but of course the water was toxic and it

we used gulf of mexico water. because you are doing those same tests and changing the fact that you're using this crude-oil meant that we spent a l of time in the laboratory at the epa and the contractors devising methods to ensure that we got representative samples. if you are not dispersing the oil, that is not helpful. trying to find the oil disbursed fraction was really important. i think there is a huge amount of science between fuel oil number 2 and prudo bay. i am probably not qualified to speculate. i would want to see a progression before i would agree. the deep sea environment is different. certainly, that is harder to imitate those pressures. and the temperature gradient between the oil. i cannot say it will never happen but i believe the industry will want to look at this tragedy and draw the conclusion that disbursement should be used all the time at up well head. look at how well it rked. i am personally not there yet. i think we had to make a decision and there were other interventions. having to si

we know that more than 4 million barrels of oil went into the gulf. today we know that 40,000 square miles of gulf, some 17%, remains closed to fishing. we know there is still oil in the marshes of louisiana, there is oil in the currents and, and scientists are finding oil on the gulf floor that they suspect although they have not confirmed comes from bp's ll. what really has people concerned here is what we don't know. that is the long-term impactn the marine life, the crabs, the shrimp, the oysters, the tuna. that is going to take several years, several reproductive cycles to tell us exactly what has happened to the marine life in the gulf. >> that gets to the question of those that make their living in the gulf is huge. how is the claim process going? are people getting their money? >> reporter: oh, they are most unhappy here in louisiana and along the gulf. claims are -- ken fineberg has overpromised and underdelivered on his invoice vow to get the m people fast. he realizes that and says he's working on that. talking to fishermethey're very frust

oil leaking into the gulf of mexico for 87 days. at last, a detailed explanation from the company said to be at blame for the disaster. >> this is an animated reconstruction of the tragic accident. >> bp catalogs save the kids that did not work, pressure cast that went on -- safety kits that did not work, pressure tests that went on tested. >> it is an enormous report where bp explicitly admits it got it wrong. the company may feel it has too much to lose. the game is given away in this final section on recommendations. it calls for improvements to procedures in engineering, technical practices, the technical capability of staff, and perhaps most important of all, it calls on bp to show better oversight up its huge companies that work for bp. >> they have not totally well away from the blame. they have accepted some responsibility for some of the failings, but they clearly identified who else they feel has a responsibility to bear. >> bp points the finger at halliburton and transocean, which owned and operated the well for bp. would

we used gulf of mexico water. because you are doing those same tests and changing the fact that you're using this crude-oil meant that we spent a lot of time in the laboratory at the epa and the contractors devising methods to ensure that we got representative samples. if you are not dispersing the oil, that is not helpful. trying to find the oil disbursed fraction was really important. i think there is a huge amount of science between fuel oil number 2 and prudo bay. i am probably not qualified to speculate. i would want to see a progression before i would agree. the deep sea environment is different. certainly, that is harder to imitate those pressures. and the temperature gradient between the oil. i cannot say it will never happen but i believe the industry will want to look at this tragedy and draw the conclusion that disbursement should be used all the time at up well head. look at how well it worked. i am personally not there yet. i think we had to make a decision and there were other interventions. having t

difficulties that continue to watch up along the gulf coast. cleanup teams fight every day at plaquemines parish but it seens right now the oil is winning the battle. >> we can't fix this on our own. we can't rebuild this on our own. we need -- we need help from the whole country, i mean, really. we need everybody. >> reporter: help they may need for years here. jay gray, nbc news, venice, louisiana. >>> well, freed american hiker sarah shourd spoke out yesterday in defense of her fiance and a friend, both still held captive in iran, calling their arrest and detention a "huge misunderstanding." shourd's comments were carefully construct and coincided to be with iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad's visit to new york to address the u.n. general assembly. nbc's brian moore has the story. >> reporter: sarah shourd is back on american soil. no longer an iranian prisoner, but still living a nightmare. >> and i stand before you today only one-third free. >> reporter: iran is preparing to try her fiance shane bauer and their hiking companion josh fa

million-pound hunk of yellow metal once attached to an oil well in the gulf. the blow-out preventer that did not live up to its name. its recovery could be the rosetta stone to the worst environmental disaster in american history. >> we want to know why it did not function the way that it was supposed to and second, we don't want this to happen again. >> reporter: this was america's first look at the complex device that could have saved 11 lives aboard the deep water horizon rig and prevented some 200 million gallons of oil from fouling the gulf of mexico and hundreds of miles of shoreline. the blow-out preventer was supposed to slice through the drill pipe in an emergency and seal the well. it failed. >> it's possible that the wellhead assembly had two pieces of drill pipe in it rather than a single piece and the blow-out preventer wasn't able to shear through both pipes. >> reporter: lifting it out of the sea was a painstakingly slow process that took almost 30 hours. when it was complete, admiral thad allen released this statement. "the damaged blow-out pre

our own anne thompson in the gulf tonight with us from venice, louisiana. anne, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. 102 miles off the coast, a frightening sense of dÉje vu. smoke once again rose from the gulf, this time from an oil platform owned by mariners energy. there were 13 workers on board at the time of the fire which was spotted about 9:19 central time this morning. those 19 workers got into safety gear and jumped into the water. they were picked up by a supply ship and then taken to another oil platform where they were transferred by helicopter to a louisiana hospital and we understand there were no serious injuries. now, this oil platform was not in production at the time of the fire and the coast guard says that earlier reports of a sheen emanating from that platform were erroneous. they see no signs of a sheen or a leak coming from that platform and that certainly is good news. the fire is out at this hour. no one is quite sure what caused it. to give you some sense of perspective, this platform produced 1,400 barrels of oil a day w

a deepwater csi in the gulf. a potentially ominous finding. researchers discover what they say is a substantial layer of oil in areas near the deepwater horizon spill. the team, led by a university of georgia marine science professor, canvassed an area as close as two miles from the wellhead and as far away as about 80 miles. in several samples from the sea floor, they found concentrations of oil seeping as much as two inches into the setment. >> we're going to talk to dr. joy on a research vessel, ten miles south, 25 nautical miles east of the wellhead. she's on the research vessel. we're going to call that now. i asked joy about other scientists who question her findings, including those who say so much oil seeps into the gulf naturally every year that some of this might not be from the deepwater horizon still. >> there's spillage from other vessels, leakage from pipelines. there's all sorts of things like that, and to find oil in the gulf of mexico in the water column is not an unusual thing. >> reporter: how do you come to believe that the

. >> well, that broken oil well in the gulf of mexico may be fixed for good by the beginning of next week. former coast guard admiral thad allen says the work on the relief well should be finished by tonight. after that work will start on the bottom kill. that involves pumping thick mud and cement into the well, and that could be completed by this weekend. that would take care of sealing the well, but cleaning up from the mess, of course, it created will like take much, much longer. meanwhile, the seafood industry insists shrimp, fish andysters from the gulf are safe to eat. >>> 66 degrees right now. ahead on "news 4 today," a popul diet drug gets a closer look. >> why the fda is so concerned this morning. plus the november elections are finally set after the primaries. we'll get a preview of the new political landscape, including the tea pty movement.

the oil industry in the gulf is treading water since the stopping on deep water drilling.engineer said recovery of the preventer may change that. >> know that we have the stack on surface and the investigation moving forward be age to better get the oil industry back up and moving again. >> reporter: it'll take days for the preventer to reach land. it'll be taken to a nasa facility near new orleans. results will be of great interest to the many victims of the oil spill who have filed hundreds of lawsuits because of it. cbs news new york. >> all right. a warning for dog owners. what are you feeding your pet could make it sick. hart is recalling 75,000 bags of natural real beef treats because they may have salmonella. they were sold across the country. there are no reports of illnesses in animals or humans. >>> concerns about west nile virus after two ineffected animals were found. a dead squirrel in redwood city ask a dead raven a week later. vector control is working to determine the source of the virus and is asking people who live in the areas to call them in they find a

difficulties that continue to wash up along the gulf coast. cleanup teams fight every day at plaquemines parish, but it seems right now, the oil is winning the battle there. >> we can't fix this on our own. we can't rebuild this on our own. we need -- we need help from the whole country, i mean, really. we need everybody. >> reporter: help they may need for years here. jay gray, nbc news, venice, louisiana. >>> well, freed american hiker sarah shourd spoke out yesterday in defense of her fiance and a friend, both still captive in iran, calling their arrest and detention a quote, huge misunderstanding. shourd's comments were carefully constructed and timed to coincide with iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad's visit to new york to address the u.n. general assembly. nbc's brian mooar has the story. >> reporter: sarah shourd is back on american soil. no longer an iranian prisoner, but still living a nightmare. >> and i stand before you today only one-third free. >> reporter: iran is preparing to try her fiance shane bauer and their hiking compa

an effort has started along the gulf coast to rescue turtle eggs.aquarium may be calledo help. >> this is a nineonth old green sea turtle on display at the re than the ray bay aquarium. it's and endangered species i the gulf coast which is why there is an extraordinary effort to unearth turtle eggs and get them to a safe place for hatching. its delicate process and mike murray says conditions must be controlled. >> you have to watch out for humidity so the eggs don't lose too much water too quickly because ju like a bird egg they are relatively porous. >> their natural instinct would take them on a dangerous journey in the oil contaminated waters. >> once they hit the water they are known to swim for 48 hours straight at a very gh speed to get away from the sur line. >> biologists say there are an estimated 70,000 turtle eggs that need to be dug up and transpted to florida's contend did i space center for hahing. ideally the ones that survive will be brat back to the atlantic ocean. >> montey bay aquarium says if needed they are prepared to care for

tomorrow, thousands of hurricane ike survivors across the gulf region may be stopped from receiving benefits that were due because of this terrible disaster. we have been working on it as the house and the senate, the senate passed the u.c. tonight to provide an extension for those benefits. however, we have not had an opportunity to do so and many people are suffering. i hope that we'll have that occasion again and i would like to yield to the distinguished majority leader to inquire about the needs of those hurricane ike victims across the whole gulf region as we did for katrina and rita, the opportunity to work on this matter so the benefits can be continued for the families in need. i yield to the gentleman. mr. hoyer: clearly, this is as

as a result, more than 200 million gallons of oil spewed into the gulf. it's still unclear why equipment on the rig failed. 11 workers died in the explosion. >> i think these guys, they deserve this. we need to find out not only for them and their memories but for the industry, because i know they would want it no other way. >> reporter: it took 29 1/2 hours to raise the device from the ocean floor one mile beneath the surface. fbi agents are escorting it to a nasa facility in louisiana where investigators will examine it. a bp spokesperson says they hope it will end the moratorium on deep water drilling in the gulf. >> everybody's going to understand what has taken place and will be able to better, you know, get the oil industry back up and moving again. >> reporter: bp and the coast guard say the oil well is sealed and no longer a threat to the gulf of mexico, but the economic and environmental impact may linger for years. cbs news, new york. >>> another u.s. soldier has been killed in afghanistan. nato says the american was killed sunday while fighting

. >>> the invest into the gulf oil leak may be near an important turn. the blowout preventer that allowed the massive spill was hauled to the surface in a delicate day long process. these are live pictures. brian mohr reports. investigators hope it provides more insight on exactly what happened. >> reporter: at the site of the gulf oil spill crews hoisted a 300 ton piece of evidence to the surface. fbi agents were on hand to take possession of the failed blowout preventer expected to give investigators new insight. >> i'm pleased to announce the new blowoutgr preventer on this well, this well does not constitute a threat to the gulf of mexico at this point. >> reporter: a new blowout preventer was maneuvered into place and bp hopes crews will be able to seal off the well for good. >> take the final steps to plug and abandon. then it will shift to the oversight of department of interior and ocean energy management. >> reporter: the leak was stopped in mid july. the cleanup will continue for a long, long time. for those demanding what went wrong, new answe

the oil wells in the gulf are being shut down. we did not get to bust the drought we have been in. >>> where we need the random house, we got it. mother nature played favorites yesterday. let's break down the rainfall accumulation. i will show you the drought monitor. here is a live look outside. looking east, we have the patchy clouds popping up in the sky. looking over the bay, there are- clouds. --high thin clouds. the humidity is dropping right now behind the cold front that moved through earlier this morning. the rainfall totals here are more impressive than not representative of what most of us gotmeyersville, died 0.80 inches. martin's bird got about half an inch. -- martinsburg got about half an inch. temperatures for the morris park are in the 70's and up to 81. let's go to the drought monitor. it was updated yesterday. notice where we need those rainbow most and there is an extreme drought in west virginia and parts of western maryland. that is where we got most of the rain yesterday. reagan national all was only 3/1 hun

we'll keep looking for oil, cleaning it up if we find it and restoring the gulf coast.rn in new orleans. my family still lives here. bp is gonna be here until the oil is gone and the people and businesses are back to normal... until we make this right. [ male announcer ] ever have morning pain slow you down? introducing bayer am, an extra strength pain reliever with alertness aid to fight fatigue. so get up and get goin'! with new bayer am. the morning pain reliever. >>> and now we want to check back on our top story. hurricane earl barrelling towards the east coast, striking first tonight in north carolina. let's go to steve osunsami in nags head. what's the latest, steve? >> reporter: the winds have picked up. you can feel the wind blowing the sand around. you can feel the sand in the air. my hand feels gritty because of it. big problem, of course, is the sea in this storm. sea surge. this is low-lying area. many people were forced to this area because of that. from here several miles south, all of the way down hattera residents were forced to leave. as that water com

a key piece of evidence surfaces in the gulf oil disaster. >>> and good news and bad news. new hopes and new hurdles for >>> and good news and bad news. new hopes and new hurdles for trapped chilean miners. captions paid for by nbc-universal television >>> hello and good morning. welcome to our viewers across the nation, including the pacific time zone. i'm lynn berry. and today we begin with laboring on labor day. as much of the nation takes the day off to celebrate this labor day, president obama will be working instead, talking up his plan to help put unemployed americans back to work. nbc's tracie potts joins us from washington with more. tracy, good morning. >> lynn, good morning. traditionally labor day has been the day we celebrate american workers of the problem is, a lot of them, millions of them, are not working. president obama will deliver an increasingly difficult message urging them to hang on. this afternoon president obama spends labor day with union leaders in milwaukee. union leaders say what has traditionally been a day of celebration has become a day of

do not care about gulf, fees, or a world-class facility, and we will cut your budget by 15%. we said we want the ability to say that we think you are making a mistake and if you go down this road i do not think we can hit the standard. we think it is important, frankly, for the city to have this provision to protect harding park for generations to come. thank you. supervisor elsbernd: another question going back to the first, incentive. can you talk about your plans? should there be incentive payment? >> the spirit of the conversation, initially, was driven from the objective that we all have to see that as the golf course performance improves, the net proceeds are turned back to the community through the asset itself, capital spending and making sure that all of the things are having a -- happening on the golf course to maintain it. also for the kids in the city of sentences go. particularly those at the park that are unfortunate, where less privileged children cannot have the benefit necessarily, we wanted to create a sustainable funding model. we said we wanted to take our

we'll keep looking for oil, cleaning it up if we find it and restoring the gulf coast. was born in new orleans. my family still lives here. bp is gonna be here until the oil is gone and the people and businesses are back to normal... until we make this right. >>> on this friday night before labor day, time now for our "making a difference" report. the ninth anniversary of 9/11 coming up a week from tomorrow. one symbol of that dark, awful day is proving to be a powerful way to improve some lives a bit. the story from nbc's roger o'neil. >> reporter: it's torn and tattered from a day of terror. >> now walk her down. >> reporter: but it survived what cement and steel couldn't. >> it was the largest american flag that was hanging before, during and after the attacks of september 11th. >> reporter: found dangling from a construction site across the street from the world trade center, a 30-foot american flag, the national 9/11 flag, it's called. [ bagpipes ] ♪ >> reporter: now, one stitch at a time, firefighters and policemen, first responders and everyday citizens from ever

we have a tropical wave in the gulf. we've got julia right here, which is a tropical storm, 50-mile-per-hour winds, not going to bother anybody. and then we have this tropical wave way out here which has some potential, medium chance of becoming our next named storm. if so, it would be lisa. let's talk about igor and where it's going to be heading. this is a category 2 hurricane right now, maximum sustained winds 105 miles per hour. you have to get up to 111 in order to be a category 3. we were there earlier today. a little bit of weakening. it will likely fluctuate in intensity. you can see it's right in the center of that cone of uncertainty and landfall would begin tomorrow into monday morning. you can see the forecast path. we're expecting that northerly turn. we have cloudiness and we saw the waves in the live shot there, but we are expecting conditions to go downhill. now, what about the u.s.? are we going to see any impact here? you bet we are, the same we did with earl and danielle. we've got a high risk of rip c

history, bp plans to seal the well for good today in the gulf of mexico.ann thompson has the latest. >> reporter: good morning, alex. i'm in louisiana where later this morning i'll be headed out to the development driller 3, that's the rig that has drilled the relief well to intercept the wakonda well earlier this week. they also pumped cement into the bottom of that well. and later this morning bp is expected to declare that the well is dead once and for all. this is a big milestone for bp and for the federal government, but for the people here along the coast of the gulf of mexico it is not that big of an event in part because oil has not flowed into the gulf since july 15th. what they are more focused on now is one, the claims process. ken feinberg promised that people would get their money within several days of filing, and that hasn't happened and people are angry. they are also concerned about the fact that much of the deep sea fishing here is still off limits because of the oil spill. and for charter boat captains, in particular, they want to know w

almost 13,000 feet below the floor of the gulf. as teams close off the rig, they're beginning to close down operations at the spill site. >> we are demobilizing equipment that's not needed. >> reporter: but many at the gulf coast want to make sure there is no slow down of the clean-up and recovery effort. even now, almost five months after the rig explosion and collapse and more than two months since crude has flowed into the gulf, teams are still finding oil. independent scientist say along the gulf floor, they've identified blankets of crude in some areas, two inches thick. federal officials are promising to continue work in the region for as long as it takes. >> we're in the midst of a comprehensive cloobra i have the effort to monitor the fate of the oil and the dispersants' subsurface. >> most here agree, even en the well is seal, there will still be a lot of work left to be done. >> reporter: the coast guard has committed to being a part of the clean-up through the end of the year anlonger if necessary. jay gray, nbc news, ve