The White House said new domestic offshore oil drilling was on hold until the disaster had been fully investigated.
VENICE, Louisiana — Oil from a giant Gulf of Mexico slick washed onto Louisiana shores Friday, threatening an environmental calamity as President Barack Obama called for a “thorough review” of the disaster.
With up to 200,000 gallons of oil a day spewing into the Gulf of Mexico from a ruptured well, the accident stemming from a sunken offshore rig may soon rival the Exxon Valdez disaster as the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
Strong southeast winds blew the first oily strands of the slick directly onto the coastal wetlands of South Pass near the mouth of the Mississippi river late Thursday, Billy Nungesser, president of Plaquemines Parish, where oil washed ashore, told AFP.
Hundreds of miles of coastline were under imminent threat in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, a region that amounts to more than 40 percent of America’s ecologically fragile wetlands.
A massive deployment of Coast Guard and private crews scrambled to contain the oil, fighting choppy seas that made the task more difficult.
Obama said some 1,900 federal response personnel are in the area with 300 boats and aircraft to combat a slick measuring at least 600 square miles. “We’ve laid 217,000 feet of protected boom and there are more on the way,”
Obama said in Washington.
The president said he asked Interior Secretary Ken Salazar “to conduct a thorough review of this incident and report back to me on 30 days” on precautions required to prevent a recurrence of such a disaster.
Obama said the government had dispatched teams to the Gulf Coast “to inspect all deep-water rigs and platforms to address safety concerns.”
British energy giant BP meanwhile said it is “taking full responsibility” for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and will pay for “legitimate claims” stemming from the disaster.
Company spokeswoman Sheila William told AFP the energy firm was ready to assume costs related to the cleanup and to reimburse damages suffered from what could become one of the worst oil spills in history. BP is “taking full responsibility for the spill and we will clean it up and where people can present legitimate claims for damages we will honor them,” she said.
BP, which leased the wrecked rig, no closer to capping the ruptured well.
The region is a prime spawning ground for fish, shrimp, and crab, home to oyster beds and a major stop for migratory birds.
“For birds, the timing could not be worse; they are breeding, nesting, and especially vulnerable in many of the places where the oil could come ashore,” said Melanie Driscoll of the Audubon Society.
The Coast Guard was coordinating vessels including skimmers, tug boats, and robotic submarines, which are investigating the underwater damage.
The White House has gone into emergency response mode to better coordinate resources and try to avoid the kind of disaster that Hurricane Katrina brought to the region in 2005.
U.S. officials called the event a disaster of “national significance,” as Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) meanwhile declared a state of emergency and called for urgent help to prevent “catastrophic loss” of vital spawning grounds and fishing communities from pollution on a massive scale. Jindal also sought the mobilization of 6,000 National Guard troops to respond to the crisis. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R) also declared a state of emergency on Friday.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered two Air Force C-130 aircraft to the area to start dropping chemicals in a bid to contain the spill, the Pentagon said. The U.S. Navy meanwhile sent in 66,000 feet of inflatable oil boom, seven skimming systems, and about 50 contractors to Gulfport, Miss., said spokesperson Lieutenant Myers Vasquez.
Top commanders and Gates were continue to confer with the White House and the Department of Homeland Security on how the military can assist the effort to contain the spill.
Despite frantic efforts to stave off an environmental calamity, many of those dependent on the region’s vital fisheries and nature reserves had already given up hope due to strong onshore squalls forecast for several days to come.
Brent Roy, who charters fishing boats off the coast, said rough seas through Saturday would make it nigh on impossible for rescue teams to contain the spill offshore.
“As it gets into the wildlife management area it is going to kill us,” he told AFP after returning to the small coastal hub of Venice from the Pass a Loutre nature reserve.
At least two lawsuits were filed on behalf of fishers and shrimpers, in what is expected to be a flood of litigation from the disaster.
Oil continues to gush unabated from near the Deepwater Horizon platform, which sank on April 22, two days after a huge explosion that killed 11 workers. Officials revealed late Wednesday that 200,000 gallons per day — about five times as much oil as previously estimated — was now pouring from the leaks.
Crews conducted a controlled “trial” burn Wednesday of one of the thickest parts of the slick, but such operations were suspended indefinitely as the heavier winds blew in.
BP, which leased the rig from Houston-based contractor Transocean, has been operating 10 robotic submarines in a so-far-unsuccessful bid to cap the ruptured well on the seabed some 5,000 feet below the surface.
At the Gulf well’s current estimated rate of leakage, it would take 54 days for the amount of spilled toxic crude to surpass the 11 million gallons of oil that poured from the grounded Exxon Valdez tanker in Alaska in 1989.
