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US approves massive sea burn to stem oil disaster
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US approves massive sea burn to stem oil disaster
AFP - 1 hour 50 minutes ago
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File picture from the US Coast Guard shows fire boats battling the blazing offshore oil rig Deepwater Horizon. US officials have approved a "controlled burn" to protect ecologically fragile coastlines from a spreading oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico.
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) - – US officials have approved a "controlled burn" to protect ecologically fragile coastlines from a spreading oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico, the Coast Guard said Wednesday.
The drastic move to set the sea on fire is seen as necessary after a giant slick growing by 42,000 gallons a day moved within 20 miles of Louisiana's wetlands -- an important sanctuary for waterfowl and other wildlife.
Southern US states, including Florida, Alabama and Mississippi are bracing for the possibility that beaches and fisheries, crucial to the region's economy, could be gunked up as early as this weekend by oily ooze from a huge slick with a 600-mile (965-kilometer) circumference.
"The area commander has approved a plan for an in situ burn and they are talking to partners in the community and industry," Coast Guard spokesman Tom Atkeson told AFP. "They may conduct a controlled burn as early as today."
The burning of oil captured in miles of inflatable containment booms floated to protect the shore could present its own environmental problems, sending huge plumes of toxic black smoke into the sky and leaving mucky residue in the sea.
Efforts by BP, which leased the Deepwater Horizon platform that sank into the ocean last week, failed Tuesday to cap two leaks in a riser pipe that had connected the rig to the wellhead, despite the operation of four robotic submarines some 1,500 meters (5,000 feet) down on the seabed.
As a back-up, engineers are frantically constructing a giant dome -- the first of its kind -- that could be placed over the leaks to try and stop the oil from spreading as some 1,000 barrels of oil per day pours from the ruptured pipe.
"I am going to say right up front: the BP efforts to secure the blowout preventer have not yet been successful," Rear Admiral Mary Landry told a press conference Tuesday, referring to a 450-tonne machine that could seal the well.
Asked to compare the accident to the notorious 1989 Exxon Valdez oil tanker disaster, Landry declined but said: "If we don't secure the well, yes, this will be one of the most significant oil spills in US history."
The US government 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 a 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 US oil services behemoth Halliburton -- of negligence.
BP has sent a flotilla of 49 skimmers, tugs, barges, and recovery boats to mop up the spill, but their efforts have been hampered by strong winds and high seas.
Northwest winds blowing the oil away from Louisiana were predicted to keep the slick from reaching shore through Thursday at least.
A rig is on stand-by to start drilling two relief wells that could divert the oil flow to new pipes and storage vessels.
But BP officials say the relief wells will take up to three months to drill, and with oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico at the rate of 42,000 gallons a day, the dome is seen as a better interim bet.
US Coast Guard spokesman Prentice Danner told AFP the dome will take two to four weeks to build.
"This is the first time this has ever been done. This idea didn't exist until now. It has never been fabricated before," he said.
The exact dimensions and design of the dome were still being worked out, but officials said it would be similar to welded steel containment structures called cofferdams that are already used in oil rig construction.
BP chief executive Tony Hayward expressed confidence that an environmental disaster would be averted as he acknowledged 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 one quarter of the US energy supply.
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