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An oil spill that threatened to eclipse even
the Exxon Valdez disaster spread out of control and drifted
inexorably toward the Gulf Coast on Thursday as fishermen rushed to
scoop up shrimp and crews spread floating barriers around marshes.


      The spill was both bigger and closer than imagined - five times
larger than first estimated, with the leading edge just three miles
from the Louisiana shore. Authorities said it could reach the
Mississippi River delta by Thursday night.


      "It is of grave concern," David Kennedy of the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told The Associated Press.
"I am frightened. This is a very, very big thing. And the efforts
that are going to be required to do anything about it, especially
if it continues on, are just mind-boggling."


      The oil slick could become the nation's worst environmental
disaster in decades, threatening hundreds of species of fish, birds
and other wildlife along the Gulf Coast, one of the world's richest
seafood grounds, teeming with shrimp, oysters and other marine
life.


      The leak from the ocean floor proved to be far bigger than
initially reported, contributing to a growing sense among many in
Louisiana that the government failed them again, just as it did
during Hurricane Katrina. President Barack Obama dispatched Cabinet
officials to deal with the crisis.


      Cade Thomas, a fishing guide in Venice, worried that his
livelihood will be destroyed. He said he did not know whether to
blame the Coast Guard, the federal government or oil company BP
PLC.


      "They lied to us. They came out and said it was leaking 1,000
barrels when I think they knew it was more. And they weren't
proactive," he said. "As soon as it blew up, they should have
started wrapping it with booms."


      The Coast Guard worked with BP, which operated the oil rig that
exploded and sank last week, to deploy floating booms, skimmers and
chemical dispersants, and set controlled fires to burn the oil off
the water's surface.


      The Coast Guard urged the company to formally request more
resources from the Defense Department. A BP executive said the
corporation would "take help from anyone."


      Government officials said the blown-out well 40 miles offshore
is spewing five times as much oil into the water as originally
estimated - about 5,000 barrels, or 200,000 gallons, a day.


      At that rate, the spill could easily eclipse the worst oil spill
in U.S. history - the 11 million gallons that leaked from the
grounded tanker Exxon Valdez in Alaska's Prince William Sound in
1989 - in the three months it could take to drill a relief well and
plug the gushing well 5,000 feet underwater on the sea floor.


      Ultimately, the spill could grow much larger than the Valdez
because Gulf of Mexico wells typically hold many times more oil
than a single tanker.


      Doug Suttles, chief operating officer for BP Exploration and
Production, had initially disputed the government's larger
estimate. But he later acknowledged on NBC's "Today" show that
the leak may be as bad as federal officials say. He said there was
no way to measure the flow at the seabed, so estimates have to come
from how much oil rises to the surface.


      Mike Brewer, 40, who lost his oil spill response company in the
devastation of Hurricane Katrina nearly five years ago, said the
area was accustomed to the occasional minor spill. But he feared
the scale of the escaping oil was beyond the capacity of existing
resources.


      "You're pumping out a massive amount of oil. There is no way to
stop it," he said.


      An emergency shrimping season was opened to allow shrimpers to
scoop up their catch before it is fouled by oil. Cannons were to be
used to scare off birds. And shrimpers were being lined up to use
their boats as makeshift skimmers in the shallows.


      This murky water and the oysters in it have provided a
livelihood for three generations of Frank and Mitch Jurisich's
family in Empire, La.


      Now, on the open water just beyond the marshes, they can smell
the oil that threatens everything they know and love.


      "Just smelling it, it puts more of a sense of urgency, a sense
of fear," Frank Jurisich said.


      The brothers hope to get all the oysters they can sell before
the oil washes ashore. They filled more than 100 burlap sacks
Thursday and stopped to eat some oysters. "This might be our last
day," Mitch Jurisich said.


      Without the fishing industry, Frank Jurisich said the family
"would be lost. This is who we are and what we do."


      Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency
Thursday so officials could begin preparing for the oil's impact.
He said at least 10 wildlife management areas and refuges in his
state and neighboring Mississippi are in the oil plume's path.


      The declaration also noted that billions of dollars have been
invested in coastal restoration projects that may be at risk.


      As dawn broke Thursday in the oil industry hub of Venice, about
75 miles from New Orleans and not far from the mouth of the
Mississippi River, crews loaded an orange oil boom aboard a supply
boat at Bud's Boat Launch. There, local officials expressed
frustration with the pace of the government's response and the
communication they were getting from the Coast Guard and BP
officials.


      "We're not doing everything we can do," said Billy Nungesser,
president of Plaquemines Parish, which straddles the Mississippi
River at the tip of Louisiana.


      Tension was growing in towns like Port Sulphur and Empire along
Louisiana Highway 23, which runs south of New Orleans along the
Mississippi River into prime oyster and shrimping waters.


      Companies like Chevron and ConocoPhillips have facilities
nearby, and some residents are hesitant to criticize BP or the
federal government, knowing the oil industry is as much a staple
here as fishing.


      "I don't think there's a lot of blame going around here. People
are just concerned about their livelihoods," said Sullivan Vullo,
who owns La Casa Cafe in Port Sulphur.


      A federal class-action lawsuit was filed late Wednesday on
behalf of two commercial shrimpers from Louisiana, Acy J. Cooper
Jr. and Ronnie Louis Anderson.


      The suit seeks at least $5 million in compensatory damages plus
an unspecified amount of punitive damages against Transocean, BP,
Halliburton Energy Services Inc. and Cameron International Corp.


      In Buras, La., where Hurricane Katrina made landfall in 2005,
the owner of the Black Velvet Oyster Bar & Grill couldn't keep his
eyes off the television. News and weather shows were making
projections that oil would soon inundate the coastal wetlands where
his family has worked since the 1860s.


      It was as though a hurricane was approaching, maybe worse.


      "A hurricane is like closing your bank account for a few days,
but this here has the capacity to destroy our bank accounts," said
Byron Marinovitch, 47.


      "We're really disgusted," he added. "We don't believe
anything coming out of BP's mouth."


      Signs of the 2005 hurricane are still apparent here: There are
schools, homes, churches and restaurants operating out of trailers,
and across from Marinovitch's bar is a wood frame house abandoned
since the storm.


      A fleet of boats working under an oil industry consortium has
been using booms to corral and then skim oil from the surface.


      The Coast Guard abandoned a plan Wednesday to set fire to the
leaking oil after sea conditions deteriorated. The attempt to burn
some of the oil came after crews operating submersible robots
failed to activate a shut-off device that would halt the flow of
oil.


      Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was
briefed Thursday on the issue, said his spokesman, Capt. John
Kirby. But Kirby said the Defense Department has received no
request for help, nor is it doing any detailed planning for any
mission on the oil spill.


      Obama dispatched Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano,
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Environmental Protection Agency
administrator Lisa Jackson to help with the spill. The president
said the White House would use "every single available resource"
to respond.


      Obama has directed officials to aggressively confront the spill,
but the cost of the cleanup will fall on BP, White House spokesman
Nick Shapiro said.

Gallery

Disasters

An oil spill that threatened to eclipse even
the Exxon Valdez disaster spread out of control and drifted
inexorably toward the Gulf Coast on Thursday as fishermen rushed to
scoop up shrimp and crews spread floating barriers around marshes.


Gulf Coast oil spill could eclipse Exxon Valdez spill

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