by Agence France-Presse
Photo courtesy 12fh via FlickrNEW ORLEANS—The United States Tuesday closed off a
large chunk of the Gulf of Mexico to fishing, while fears grew that a giant oil
slick could be swept to Florida’s beaches and coral reefs.
The cautionary closure,
totaling 45,728 square miles—around 19 percent of the Gulf’s federal waters—was announced as politicians in Washington raged over the apparent lax
enforcement of safety standards and grilled government officials over what went
wrong.
The chief of the
U.S. agency monitoring the spill warned that the “unprecedented and
dynamic” slick was on course to sweep along the region’s coastline.
“The
proximity of the southeast tendril of oil to the loop current indicates that
oil is increasingly likely to become entrained in the loop current if it is not
already,” Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, told a press conference. “When that occurs, oil could
reach the Florida Strait in eight to 10 days,” she said.
Experts are
analyzing at least 20 tar stains found on several beaches on Florida’s southern
Keys to determine if they were from the spill.
Sen. Bill Nelson
(D-Fla.), meanwhile, speaking before a congressional hearing on the disaster,
described the prospect of oil hitting his state of Florida and heading up the
U.S. eastern seaboard as his “worst nightmare.”
The bleak
warnings obscured BP’s positive reports Tuesday of progress in its month-long
effort to contain the leak: a tube inserted into a gushing oil pipe is now
sucking up about 40 percent of the crude, twice as much as a day earlier. The
company said its “riser insertion tube tool” is carrying about 2,000
barrels a day of oil up to the Discoverer Enterprise drill ship on the surface
via a mile-long pipe.
BP reckons about
5,000 barrels, or 210,000 gallons, of crude is spewing each day from the
wreckage of the Deepwater Horizon rig, although analysis from independent
experts suggests the flow rate could be many times that.
In Washington,
the political firestorm was raging over accounts of lax enforcement of safety
standards and other regulation for offshore drilling, with Interior Secretary
Ken Salazar pledging to revamp his agency’s Minerals and Management Service with “more tools, more resources,
more independence.” In that effort, Salazar also said there was a
“need to clean up that house,” amid scathing criticism of the body.
Worries over the
ecological impact of the huge oil spill, and even the efforts to contain it,
are growing with worries focused on the Florida Keys.
With hugely
popular tourist beaches and fragile coral reefs around the southern tip of the
peninsula, the loop current has the potential to take the economic and
environmental impact of the spill to a whole new level.
“I think
the threat to South Florida is real and we should get ready,” said Igor
Kamenkovich, a scientist at the University of Miami. “It’s hard to predict
but … if it does happen, it is bad news for us.”
There are also
concerns that huge underwater plumes of crude could be starving the Gulf of oxygen, meaning the slick is having a
far greater impact on the marine environment than previously thought.
An expert from
the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies told AFP that deepwater
spills posed greater risks due to these plumes, which some experts have warned
may be linked to dispersants that
stop the oil from rising.
“Normally,
in a shallow spill, everything pretty much shoots up to the surface and the
impacts are primarily to surface organisms like turtles, dolphins, whales, and
birds,” explained Paul Montagna. However, “under this really cold, high-pressure environment, the
oil is getting dispersed through the water column.”
Louisiana’s
Department of Wildlife and Fisheries on Tuesday requested data from BP on the
use of dispersants, with agency chief Robert Barham complaining that
“little or no substantive data has been provided … concerning the
efficacy and risks associated with deep injection of dispersants.”
Salazar, in
testimony to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said he
expected BP to attempt a “dynamic kill” to further contain the oil
spewing from the well.
“The
expectation is that this Saturday or this Sunday the triggers will be pulled
for a dynamic kill of the well,” he said, explaining this would involve
injection of fluids and other materials to stem the flow.
Salazar said the
maligned MMS would be reconfigured in order to tighten regulation and promised
to work with the White House and lawmakers on broader reforms, based on input
from a national commission probing the spill to be named by President Barack Obama.
Congressional
hearings have revealed multiple warning signs that were overlooked before the
April 20 blast on the Deepwater Horizon rig that killed 11 people and touched off the catastrophe.
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