PART ONE… http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/01/gulf.oil.spill/index.html?hpt=T1 Oil spill spreads to Mississippi, Alabama By the CNN Wire Staff June 1, 2010 6:59 p.m. EDT Tar balls and puddles of oil are reported on Alabama's Dauphin Island. * U.S. begins criminal investigation into oil spill * Robots make latest attempt to stop the oil leak * Spill makes a third of Gulf off-limits to fishing * BP puts cost of spill response at $990 million (CNN) — Oil from BP's massive Gulf of Mexico crude spill reached the shores of Mississippi on Tuesday, Gov. Haley Barbour's office reported. Residents and researchers reported oil in Alabama. In Mississippi, a long, narrow strand of oil came ashore on Petit Bois Island, Barbour's office said. The strand of oil was about 2 miles long but only 3 feet wide, said Laura Hipp, a spokeswoman for Barbour's office. Cleanup crews were on the scene Tuesday evening, she said. Petit Bois Island is off Pascagoula, Mississippi. It's about five miles west of Dauphin Island, Alabama, where oil was also washing ashore Tuesday afternoon. But Hipp said most of the oil remained more than 35 miles off Horn Island, the largest of Mississippi's barrier islands. The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration had warned earlier this week that the spreading slick from an undersea BP oil well was heading toward the Alabama and Mississippi coasts. Tar balls associated with the Gulf spill had hit Dauphin Island, about 35 miles south of Mobile, in early May, but residents said that Tuesday was the first time they had seen oil hitting the beach. Nevertheless, people were still on the beaches and swimming in the blue-green waters. BP began its latest attempt to curtail the flow of oil from an underwater well in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, using robot submarines to cut into a damaged pipe a mile down. The operation carries the risk that the flow of crude from the ruptured well, already the largest oil spill in U.S. history, will increase — but if successful, the company says it will be able to catch most of that oil with a cap it plans to place over the severed lower marine riser pipe. “Even with an increased flow rate, this cap will be able to handle this,” BP Managing Director Bob Dudley told CNN's “American Morning.” Meanwhile, the Obama administration distanced itself from BP by announcing it would no longer hold joint news conferences with the company; and Attorney General Eric Holder, after meeting with Gulf-Coast-state attorneys general, told reporters the Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into the oil spill. The engineering involved in the latest work on the damaged well has never been attempted at a depth of 5,000 feet. But Dudley said Tuesday the latest attempt is “more straightforward” than previous, unsuccessful efforts. A mechanical claw began squeezing the heavy riser pipe late Tuesday morning, the first step in a series of planned cuts. After that, a diamond-cut saw was being brought in to make a “clean cut,” preparing the way for the custom-made cap to be fitted over the lower marine riser package. Oil has been gushing from the undersea well since April 20 when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and later sank. Government estimates are that up to 19,000 barrels (798,000 gallons) of oil a day are flowing into the Gulf of Mexico. Dudley said that could increase by up to 20 percent — nearly 160,000 gallons — when the pipe is cut, but he said the company has learned lessons from its earlier attempts that it is applying to the new process. Warm water and methanol will be pumped into the cap to limit the growth of gas hydrate crystals that thwarted an earlier attempt to cap the spill, he said. And a second line is planned to draw more oil off the well's blowout preventer, a critical piece of safety equipment that has so far failed to shut down the well, using equipment involved in last week's failed “top kill” operation. BP's handling of the spill and its statements regarding the status of operations have been sharply criticized by some in recent weeks. The Obama administration announced Tuesday that it would no longer hold joint news briefings with the company and that Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, its point man on the spill, will now become the face of the government's response effort. Allen told reporters in New Orleans, Louisiana, that his job is to speak “very frankly with the American public.” “I think we need to be communicating with the American people through my voice as the national incident commander,” he said. 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. Coast Guard Commandant Robert Papp said the plan always has been for Landry to resume that role in preparation for the Atlantic hurricane season, which began Tuesday. Allen praised Landry's work leading “an anomalous and unprecedented response” to the spill, but said Landry now needs to focus “on the larger array of threats” to her district, which includes the U.S. Southeast and Midwest. CONTINUED… added by: EthicalVegan
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