Oil spill in Gulf of Mexico reaches US Gulf coast

http://www.timesofearth.com/Worldnews/?NT=0&nid=21407 Louisiana - Small amounts of oil from a massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico have reached US shores.

Officials said the leak, from an oil rig sunk by a massive explosion last week, was five times worse than previously thought, and could trigger a disaster of "national significance" on the Gulf coast.

By sunset on Thursday, the oil had reached the mouth of Mississippi River, lapping at the shoreline in long, thin lines and threatening birds, marine life and some of the country's richest seafood grounds.

The massive slick has prompted the southern US state of Louisiana to declare a state of emergency and the White House to step up its response.

Barack Obama, the US president, said his administration would use every resource at its disposal, including the military, to stop the spill and help alleviate its impact.

"While BP is ultimately responsible for funding the cost of response and cleanup operations, my administration will continue to use every single available resource at our disposal, including potentially the department of defence, to address the incident," Obama said on Thursday.

BP, the British energy company responsible for the damage caused by the leak, said it was grateful for the offer of help from the military.

"We'll take help from anyone, I mean we welcome the offer from the department of defence, we're working with the experts across the industry," Doug Suttles, chief operating officer of BP's exploration and production unit, said.

"We're going to do everything we can to minimise the impact of this event."
The oil leak began on April 20 after an explosion at the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig left 11 workers dead and caused it to sink two days later.

The spill has sparked fears of an environmental disaster along the US Gulf coast, which could threaten wildlife as well as economically important fishing grounds and oyster beds.

In March, the Obama administration agreed to open more of the US coastline to offshore drilling.

Kate Sheppard, the environmental reporter for Mother Jones magazine in Washington, said there was now pressure to change these plans.

"There was already a lot of outrage about this offshore drilling expansion and environmentalists were up in arms, a lot of coastal state legislators, Republicans and Democrats, were pretty upset about this.

"This [oil spill] has added fuel to their complains. They said this could be catastrophic and now they actually have evidence of just how dangerous it actually can be."

Clean-up crews have been struggling to control the slick, with a fleet of vessels dispatched earlier in the week hampered by strong winds and high seas.

Brandon Blackwell, a US coastguard spokesman in Louisiana, told Reuters news agency that the authorities wanted to "fight this spill as far off shore as possible".

"Of course it will hurt the environment, local economies will be impacted," he said.

Blackwell advised people to stay away from coastline threatened by the oil spill, but also to let the authorities know if they see unattended oil.

At a special White House briefing on the slick, the US coast guard said on Thursday that it was being very aggressive in its response to the spill, but admitted at the same time that it was preparing for the worst case scenario of oil reaching shore.

BP engineers working with the coast guard have been testing techniques to set fire to parts of the slick to burn off some of the oil and slow its spread.

Neither the US coast guard nor BP offered any new information on efforts to seal off the underwater well head that has caused the massive oil slick.

Four remote-controlled robotic submarines deployed to the leak site earlier in the week have so far failed to activate a shutoff device, called a "blowout preventer", at the head of the well.

As an emergency back-up, BP engineers are also working to construct a giant dome to place over the leaking well to contain it. Collected oil could then be pumped out of the structure.

Prentice Danner, a spokesman for the US coast guard, said that option will take between two and four weeks, and is so far an untested one.


----------
Copyright 2010 THE TIMES OF EARTH All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Oil
• spill
• oozes
• ashore
• in
• Louisiana

[glendcruz2001]

USPH that fu..ing americans!!! may ur greed for oil end some day.

[TheCaptainQuinn]

Just so everyone is aware and I hate to point out the obvious but we all live on this planet together, when something like this happens we all suffer. The state of our health depends on the state of our environments health. There is no doubt that people need to start thinking more about our environment and a hell of a lot less about our economy and in this regard it doesn't matter one bit where you are from. However, some countries have a lot more work to do than others!

-Captain Quinn

[BryanandNick101]

Oil is always getting into the ocean that's why i donate money monthly to the Ocean Conservancy.

[Starpass]

@happinesson The Government that caused this is the hidden government known as the Illuminati. They are destroying the United States; bit by bit.

[happinesson]

Government must do something about this! Very alarming!

[StephanieLisaTara]

HAIKU

I hatch! Crawl! And swim!

Oh how I love my sweet life,

Don't pollute my home.

—A Green Sea Turtle

[ugkillbill1]

wtf why are u people saying fuck americans get your fat lazy ass of the couch and help do something about it im not a victim but i came and tryed to help and i did alittle but every little thing counts now u victims saying fuck americans get the hell off the game off the tv and computers and go do something i helped now its your turn i came all the way and helped and i lived far far away but i came now get your lazy asses up and start helping got damit blaming us but u not doing shit to help fu

[funkycrazy321]

this is not about people saying fuck the usa and if u whant to make the world a better place get of yr fat ass and help it isnt just about the oil spill there are so many other things too so insted of not epreshating yr things nabby think about giving them to people how ned them so u get were im going just love and if u hate keep it to yr self and please think about the world more.

[rafalozanop]

Fuck usa it is the most Gates country in the world

[mrswartz]

disliked

[xSweetSimplicityx33]

@TheCaptainQuinn is it really you because you said hell!