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Florida expects Gulf oil to hit Panhandle in Â«a day or twoÂ»

03 June 2010 03:56 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Mats of weathered oil and tar balls from the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster could hit the western Florida Panhandle "in a day or two," Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said Wednesday, APA reports quoting CN.
Sheen from the leading edge of the spill was spotted just short of 10 miles from Florida shores Tuesday night, and "thousands of tar balls" were in the water with it, Crist told reporters Wednesday morning.
The announcement follows the discovery of oil on Alabama and Mississippi barrier islands that is believed to be from the undersea gusher that has been spewing off Louisiana since late April. State officials are deploying another 66,000 feet of protective booms to the state’s westernmost three counties, and boats have been sent out to try to skim as much of the oil off the water as possible, Crist said.
"The goal is to remove that oil from near-shore waters and prevent and minimize any potential impacts on our state," he said.
Beleaguered oil company BP hit another snag Wednesday morning in its attempt to cap the undersea gusher responsible for the worst oil disaster in U.S. history.
The blade of a diamond wire cutter being used to slice off the damaged riser pipe got stuck -- much like a saw on a tree limb -- and stalled the "cut and cap" operation for about five hours, said U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the federal government’s point man in the Gulf.
The operation involves remote-controlled robots used to sever the damaged riser pipe. Engineers then plan to place a custom fit cap over the well stub.
Allen said how snugly that cap fits and stops oil from gushing depends on how smoothly the riser pipe is cut.
"It’s a question of how much precision we can bring to it," he said.
Meanwhile, rust-colored oil washed ashore Tuesday on barrier islands off Alabama and Mississippi.
Doug Suttles, the company’s chief operating officer, told CNN’s "John King USA" on Tuesday night that the latest procedure should collect the "vast majority" of the oil if it succeeds.
But the operation carries the risk that the flow of crude from the ruptured well could increase by up to 20 percent once the damaged riser is cut away.
The job already has been complicated by pipework around the well that has had to be removed before massive metal shears could be brought to bear, Suttles said.
And the gusher may not be shut down until August when BP expects to complete relief wells that will take the pressure off the one now spewing into the Gulf.
The well, 5,000 feet below the water’s surface, erupted after an explosion and fire aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig on April 20. Eleven people were killed. The rig sank two days later, leaving up to 19,000 barrels (798,000 gallons) of oil pouring into the Gulf, according to federal estimates.
After fouling sections of Louisiana’s marshes over the past two weeks, the oil was spreading toward the northeast on Tuesday. Tar balls and patches of reddish-brown "weathered" oil came ashore on Dauphin Island, Alabama, south of Mobile, Alabama, and on Mississippi’s Petit Bois Island, off Pascagoula, Mississippi, authorities said.
Track the Gulf oil disaster
More than a dozen miles offshore, researchers from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab reported seeing more rust-colored swaths of oil spattering the surface of the Gulf. They ranged from the size of half-dollar coins to 30 or 40 feet long, said John Dindo, the laboratory’s associate director.
WALA-TV: Tar balls raise concerns for Gulf Coast
BP’s handling of the disaster has been sharply criticized by members of Congress, officials in the Gulf states and the Obama administration, which announced Tuesday that a criminal investigation was under way. In addition, federal officials will no longer hold joint news briefings with the company, the administration said.
Allen, the government’s point man, will now become the face of the response effort. Allen told reporters in New Orleans, Louisiana, that his job is to speak "very frankly with the American public."
And Rear Adm. Mary Landry, who has been the Coast Guard’s on-scene coordinator for five weeks, will be returning to her duties as chief of the service’s New Orleans district office. Allen praised Landry’s work leading "an anomalous and unprecedented response" to the disaster, but said Landry now needs to focus "on the larger array of threats" to her district -- including this summer’s Atlantic hurricane season, which began Tuesday.
Tuesday also marked the start of the recreational fishing season for red snapper, a big draw for sport anglers in the region. But the U.S. government closed another portion of the Gulf of Mexico to fishing Wednesday, extending the restrictions deeper into the Gulf and eastward along the Florida Panhandle.
The latest order from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration means 37 percent of the Gulf is now closed to fishing. It is the third day that NOAA has extended restrictions on federal waters.
The latest order moves the closure eastward, from the Alabama state line to just south of Navarre, Florida, east of Pensacola. And it closes off a larger portion of the deep southern Gulf, extending that zone to the edge of the Dry Tortugas off southwestern Florida.
After a meeting with state attorneys general and federal prosecutors from Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told reporters that the Justice Department was looking at possible criminal violations in connection with the spill.
"If we find evidence of illegal behavior, we will be forceful in our response," Holder said. "We have already instructed all relevant parties to preserve any documents that may shed light on the facts surrounding this disaster."
BP said in a statement in response to Holder’s announcement that it would cooperate with any inquiry, "just as we are doing in response to the other inquires that are already ongoing."
Suttles said that there have been "very few differences" between company and federal officials working to cut off the leak.
"This is a team that’s really all aligned on the same goals and has been since the beginning," he said. "The government clearly presses us very hard to make sure we’re responding as quick as we can. We’re moving things forward; we’re applying all the resources that we need to apply. But I would stress at the working level, those differences are really quite small."
BP, rig owner Transocean Ltd. and oilfield services company Halliburton have blamed each other for the disaster. But BP, as the well’s owner, is responsible for the costs of the cleanup under federal law. Suttles said the company has spent more than $1 billion to clean up the oil.
BP stock has taken a beating on Wall Street, plunging Tuesday after the failure.