by Agence France-Presse
Emergency crews battle flames at the Deep Horizon oil rig before it sank last week. Oil is now spewing into the Gulf of Mexico at 42,000 gallons a day.Photo: U.S. Coast GuardNEW ORLEANS, Louisiana—Emergency teams launched a
“controlled burn” operation on Wednesday to stop a giant oil slick in
the Gulf of Mexico from spreading off the ecologically fragile Louisiana coast.
A fleet of
skimming vessels deployed by the U.S. Coast Guard and British energy giant BP
swept the most dense concentrations of crude into a 500-foot-long
fire-resistant boom.
“This oil
will then be towed to a more remote area, where it will be ignited and burned
in a controlled manner,” said a joint statement released by BP and the
Coast Guard.
The drastic move
was deemed necessary because a huge slick with a 600-mile circumference has
moved within 23 miles of Louisiana’s wetlands—an important sanctuary for
waterfowl and other wildlife.
Mopping up the
oil if it reaches the wetlands would be next to impossible and officials fear
the slick could devastate the state’s $2.4 billion a year fisheries industry,
which produces a significant portion of U.S. seafood.
Coast Guard
spokesperson Lieutenant Commander Cheri Ben-Iesau said response units would
evaluate how well the initial burn-offs work before attempting any larger
operation to burn up the slick.
“Today they
are just seeing this as a kind of trial fire to see if it even can be
done,” Ben-Iesau told AFP, adding that extensive corralling of the oil
into denser concentrations was required before the actual burning would start.
“I believe that they use an actual accelerant to start it. You can’t just
throw a match in it and have it start.”
Oil is spewing
at the rate of 42,000 gallons a day from the riser pipe that connected the
Deepwater Horizon platform to the wellhead before the rig sank last week after
a deadly explosion that killed 11 workers.
BP has been
using four robotic submarines some 5,000 feet down on the seabed to activate a
giant 450-tonne valve, called a blowout preventer, and shut off the leaks.
As a back-up,
engineers are frantically constructing a giant dome that could be placed over the leaks to trap the oil, which would then be pumped
up to containers on the surface.
A rig is also on
standby to drill two relief wells that could divert the oil flow to new pipes
and storage vessels. But they would take up to three months to drill, and the
dome is seen as a better interim bet even though it could take up to four weeks
to construct.
Tuesday’s oil
burns could present their own environmental problems, sending huge plumes of
toxic black smoke into the sky and leaving mucky residue in the sea, although
Coast Guard officials dismissed the threat.
“The
closest shoreline is a very remote area,” said Ben-Iesau. “If any
mammals that are seen in the area, we will obviously have to hold off till that
threat is gone.”
“We don’t
want anyone downwind from the smoke,” she said, adding, “there are
obviously dangers inherent in these sort of operations working offshore with a
lot big vessels.”
The
Environmental Protection Agency was to continuously monitor air quality during
the operations, and officials gave assurances the burning would immediately be
halted should safety standards be breached.
Coast Guard Rear
Admiral Mary Landry, who is leading the government’s response to the disaster,
warned on Tuesday that if BP fails to secure the well, it could end up being
“one of the most significant oil spills in U.S. history.”
The U.S.
government has promised a “comprehensive and thorough investigation” into the explosion that sank the platform and pledged
“every resource” to help stave off an environmental disaster.
The rig, which
BP leases from Houston-based contractor Transocean, went down last Thursday 130
miles southeast of New Orleans, still burning off crude two days after the
blast that killed 11 workers.
The widow of one
of the dead has filed a lawsuit accusing the companies that operated the rig—BP, Transocean, and U.S. oil-services behemoth Halliburton—of negligence.
BP
chief executive Tony Hayward said he was confident an environmental disaster
would be averted, acknowledging that strong first-quarter results Tuesday had
been overshadowed by the “tragic accident.” Landry noted that the
deadly rig accident has not disrupted offshore gulf oil production, which
accounts for more than a quarter of the U.S. energy supply.
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