WASHINGTON, July 16 (UPI) -- Nearly 2,000 military personnel are deployed to the Gulf of Mexico to help clean up the oil spill, the U.S. Defense Department said.
Pentagon officials said thousands of full-time military and National Guard personnel are involved in the cleanup effort under way in the Gulf of Mexico.
U.S. Army Lt. Col. Robert Ditchey II, a Pentagon spokesman, said the U.S. military was dedicated to working with the U.S. Coast Guard in the cleanup effort.
"We have been working together closely with the U.S. Coast Guard from the beginning," Ditchey said in a statement. "We are committed to supporting the response effort for as long as we are needed."
The Coast Guard is leading the federal response in the Gulf of Mexico.
Ditchey said the Navy has 19 skimmers and 29 tow boats in the Gulf cleaning up the oil slick. Naval efforts deployed to the Gulf are analyzing ocean currents as well.
Scientists had worried the spill would drift into the Loop Current, sending oil up the eastern coast of the United States.
British oil company BP announced Thursday that a containment cap had temporarily stopped oil from spilling into southern U.S. waters, though thousands of barrels of oil have spilled each day since the April sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil platform.
