It’s been one year since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew up in the Gulf of Mexico. All week, The Takeaway is talking to Gulf Coast residents about how the spill has affected their lives. Today, we check in with Southern writer Rick Bragg, author of "All Over but the Shoutin."

Deep water drilling can resume in the Gulf of Mexico; the federal government lifted its moratorium on deepwater drilling yesterday.

We've come a long way, baby...

The Macondo well may be sealed and "dead," but the impact of the Deepwater Horizon disaster is going to be felt for some time to come. We're spending the whole hour wrestling with some of the unanswered questions and lingering issues that the BP oil spill has left in its wake. To help us navigate these dirty waters, Robert Hernan, author of "This Borrowed Earth: Lessons from the Fifteen Worst Environmental Disasters Around the World" joins us for the hour.

Also, check out our timeline of the entire disaster, spanning from the Deepwater Horizon's construction in 1998 through when it was declared "dead" on Sunday.

In light of Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen’s announcement, Sunday, that the Macondo 252 well has finally been sealed for good, we’re dedicating an entire hour to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. It’s been a long and tortuous saga, replete with conflicting information, so here’s a quick re-cap of events.

Kenneth Feinberg officially took over the $20 billion fund allocated for those affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil gusher. BP, the company responsible for the crisis, has already paid $368 million to individuals and businesses who suffered financial losses. But thousands of claims are still left unresolved and will fall now on Feinberg's desk. 

Since the Deepwater Horizon explosion in April, 205.8 million gallons of oil have gushed into the Gulf of Mexico, according to the latest estimates by federal scientists. (Imagine a cube filled with oil, where each side is as long as an American football field.) In the months since the explosion, BP has made more than a dozen attempts to stop the flow of oil. Last night BP started a "static kill," a procedure that could permanently seal the well. 

What have scientists learned from this spill?  Can we prevent this from happening again? 

The oil unleashed into the Gulf of Mexico over the last months is a toxic danger to sea life and wetlands, but in a frustrating Catch-22, so is one of the key methods of fighting the oil. Chemical dispersants, though better (in most cases) for the environment than the oil itself, still pose different environmental hazards. BP says they have only used 1.8 million gallons of the dispersant "Corexit," but a Congressional inquiry may yet call those numbers into doubt. We look at the effects of the dispersant on the environment and talk to a shrimper about whether he's seen any toxicity in his catch as the season begins.

For many politicians along the Gulf Coast, the oil spill has had an unexpected positive spillover effect – increased exposure and popularity. With the clear exception of BP and its doomed CEO, Tony Hayward, the oil spill has given politicians the opportunity to bond more closely with their constituents along the Gulf Coast.

It's been four days since BP put a cap on the Deepwater Horizon oil well and, with cautious optimism, people have begun talking about recovery. But just because the oil has stopped gushing doesn't mean the damage is done. In fact, say some scientists, more harm is soon to come.

BP continues damage control on its wounded brand, just as it begins to look like the oil has stopped gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. At the upcoming Kabul Conference, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and delegates from all over the world will meet to try and figure out ways to hand more responsibility for Afghanistan back to the Afghan government.

We look ahead at the news driving the next seven days.

BP has successfully installed and closed a 75-ton cap atop the gushing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico and for the first time in 85 days, oil has stopped flowing into the ocean. While this may come as a huge relief to many whose lives and livelihoods depend on the Gulf waters, some experts estimate that up to 184 million gallons of oil may have already contaminated the sea. (For a sense of scale, imagine one of the world's largest super-massive cruise ships filled up to the brim with sticky crude oil.  Now imagine another one, the exact same size, also filled to the brim with oil. That's roughly 150 million gallons.)

BP finally has some good news to report: A recently installed 75 ton cap has, for the first time in 85 days, stopped the flood of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico from a broken wellhead. While the damage to Gulf shores may have been relatively light thus far, anywhere between 93.5 and 184 million gallons of crude oil has likely contaminated those waters.

Over the weekend, BP began working to place a new cap on the gushing Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico. The old cap, estimated to divert 15,000 barrels of oil a day, was removed Saturday, in order to make room for the new one. This has allowed oil from the well to gush unimpeded. If all goes according to plan, the new cap should contain all the oil from the well, an estimated 60,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil a day.

On Tuesday, oil hit the coast of Texas, officially reaching every state along the Gulf of Mexico. About five gallons of oil were found near Galveston, Tex. appearing in the form of small tar balls.  According to state Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, tar balls are not uncommon in Texas; they hear about ten reports of them a year. That same office also confirmed that the oil has come from the BP Deepwater Horizon leak, and said it has most likely reached Texas by a boat or vessel rather than ocean currents.

One of the worst blunders of the government's widely-criticized response to Hurricane Katrina has resurfaced in the Gulf region. Trailers that the Federal Emergency Management Agency provided to victims of the hurricane that were later found to contain dangerous levels of formaldehyde by the Environmental Protection Agency, and subsequently banned by the federal government, are making a comeback. 

Cleanup workers are snapping up the toxic trailers from companies and individuals who have purchased them from government surplus auctions.  Dave Cohen, news director at WWL in New Orleans, joins the program with the latest.

Just when it seemed like the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico couldn't get any worse, hurricane season has officially begun. The tropical storm called Alex has been upgraded to a hurricane and is expected to make landfall in the next 24 hours.

Rough seas caused by Alex's winds are not only disrupting the cleanup of the BP oil spill, it's also having an impact on the already distressed shrimpers and seafood processors in the region. To find out how the seafood industry is reacting first-hand, we talk to Dean Blanchard. He's planning on sticking out the storm, and tells The Takeaway how this latest setback is affecting his livelihood in Grand Isle, Louisiana.

A federal judge in New Orleans has overturned a moratorium on deepwater oil drilling, instituted by President Obama at the end of May. The judge said the Interior Department's decision to suspend drilling in the Gulf was arbitrary. Obama, on Tuesday, vowed to appeal the decision.

Special Master for TARP Executive Compensation Kenneth Feinberg—more popularly referred to as the "Wall Street Pay Czar"—has a long history of arbitrating over contentious and sensitive issues. From determining the fair market value of the Zapruder film of John F. Kennedy's assassination to determining the fair market value of the lives of victims of 9/11, Feinberg's history of mediation made him a logical choice to administer the $20 billion escrow fund for victims of BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Since the start of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, neither BP nor politicians nor the smartest engineers and technicians in America have been able to cap the well and contain the damage.

Some Americans say we are looking to the wrong people for answers, and should instead be directing our requests to a higher power.

Tony Hayward, the much-criticized CEO of BP, faced angry lawmakers on Capital Hill yesterday for the first time since the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Hayward stuck closely to his prepared statements, ducking many of the questions posed to him, but in the course of the questioning, we did learn some important things about the oil spill and the political fallout it's causing.

Takeaway Washington correspondent, Todd Zwillich, attended the hearings and shares his impressions.