Emergency crews rushed to protect fragile shorelines and islands as the Gulf of Mexico oil slick expanded, prompting a mobilization of more national guard troops and new alerts as far as the Florida Keys.
With oil still gushing yesterday from the ruptured offshore well, volunteers and others descended on the region to help stave off a looming environmental crisis from the huge oil patch.
Pentagon officials authorized the use of additional National Guard troops to assist. As many as 6,000 in Louisiana can be mobilized, with 3,000 in Alabama, 2,500 in Florida and 6,000 in Mississippi.
PHOTO: EPA
The stepped up efforts came amid growing fears for the environment and wildlife.
A sea turtle was spotted swimming through a massive oil slick about 25km south of Louisiana by officials from the National Wildlife Foundation. The group hired a boat from the port town of Venice and went out into the Gulf of Mexico through an outlet in the Mississippi River.
Nobody on board was trained in animal rescue and they were forced to leave the obviously distressed turtle in the slick and simply report the coordinates to a hotline.
More than 600 animal species are threatened by the expanding oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico, officials say.
Twelve shrimp trawlers and 10 official response boats frantically laid protective booms around some of the Chandeleur Islands — a group of uninhabited prime marsh and wildlife area — but initially failed to confirm any land impacts.
In Florida, authorities were preparing for the impact of the oil slick if loop currents bring the pollution to the state’s shores. Coast Guard officials said the mobilization was occurring as far as Key West.
On the coastal areas of Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana, forecasters said that the bulk of the slick won’t make landfall before the end of the week, officials said.
Two weeks after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, the full impact of the disaster is being realized as a massive slick looms off the US Gulf coast, threatening to wipe out the livelihoods of shoreline communities.
If estimates are correct, some 9.4 million liters of crude have streamed into the sea since the BP-leased platform spectacularly sank on April 22 after an initial blast that killed 11 workers.
The riser pipe that had connected the rig to the wellhead now lies fractured on the seabed spewing out oil at a rate that could see the spill rival the 1989 Exxon Valdez environmental disaster in Alaska.
BP crews kept working beneath the sea to stop the well’s hemorrhage of an estimated 790,000 liters a day. BP said work had begun on a relief well to intercept the leaking well about 3,900m below the seabed and permanently seal it. However, the process could take three months, the company said.
BP is preparing to deploy a 98-tonne containment “dome” to try to stem the tide of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico and avert an environmental catastrophe.
The operation to place the giant structure over the largest of three oil leaks is unprecedented and, facing depths of almost 1.6km, remote-controlled submarines will have to guide it into place, possibly by the weekend.
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