Hurricane pushes oil to US beaches

Rough seas generated by Hurricane Alex pushed more oil from the massive spill onto
Gulf Coast beaches on Wednesday as cleanup vessels were sidelined by the faraway
storm's ripple effects.
The hurricane was churning coastal waters across the oil-affected region on the Gulf
of Mexico. Two metre waves and 40km/h winds were forecast through Thursday just
offshore from the Mississippi Delta in Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle.
In Louisiana, the storm pushed an oil patch toward Grand Isle and uninhabited
Elmer's Island, dumping tar balls as big as apples on the beach. Clean-up workers
were kept at bay by pouring rain and lightning that zigzagged across the dark sky.
Boom lining the beach had been tossed about, and it couldn't be put back in place
until the weather cleared.
"The sad thing is that it's been about three weeks since we had any big oil come in
here," marine science technician Michael Malone said. "With this weather, we lost
all the progress we made."
The loss of dozens of skimmers, combined with gusts driving water into the coast,
left beaches especially vulnerable.
Large waves churned up by Hurricane Alex left Alabama beaches splattered with oil
and tar balls on Wednesday, even with Alex more than 800kms away as it approached
the Texas-Mexico coast. Long stretches were stained brown as far as 55 metres from
the edge of the water.
Oil deposits appeared worse than in past days, and local officials feared the
slowdown would make matters worse as tourists come to the beach for the July Fourth
holiday.
"I'm real worried about what is going to happen with those boats not running. It
can't help," said Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon.
The nasty weather will likely linger in the Gulf through Thursday, National Weather
Service meteorologist Brian LaMarre said.
In Florida, tar lumps the size of dinner plates filled a large swath of beach east
of Pensacola in Navarre Beach after rough waves brought the mess ashore. Wind and
rain kept crews from cleaning the crude.
"The weather has hampered the clean-up. Our night crews went out there to try and
verify exactly how much it was and it's about half a mile," said Santa Rosa County
spokeswoman Joy Tsubooka.
She said cleanup crews would work throughout the day on Wednesday, but lightning and
rain from expected thunderstorms could slow the work.
Officials scrambled to reposition boom to protect the coast and had to remove barges
barricading oil from sensitive wetlands. Those operations could soon get a boost.
The US accepted offers of help from 12 countries and international organisations.
Japan, for instance, was sending two skimmers and a boom.
Alex is projected to stay far from the spill zone off the Louisiana coast. It is not
expected to affect work at the site of the blown-out well. But the storm's outer
edges complicated the clean-up.
Early on Wednesday, Alex had maximum sustained winds near 130 kph. The National
Hurricane Center said the Category 1 storm is the first June Atlantic hurricane
since 1995. It is on track for the Texas-Mexico border region and expected to make
landfall Wednesday night.
As Alex approached, skimming efforts off the coasts of Louisiana, Florida, Alabama
and Mississippi had mostly stopped.
BP's disaster response plan for a spill didn't mention hurricanes or tropical
storms, Rep Edward Markey, D-Mass, said on Wednesday during a congressional hearing.
He said the omission is yet another example of what the oil giant was not prepared
to handle.
At the main staging area for oil cleanup efforts around Grand Isle, stacks of boom,
bottled water, ice chests and cleaning materials stood ready to load up when the
work restarted.
Brothers Otis and Vahn Butler of Houma got jobs there just three days ago.
"We've been steady busy until today," Otis Butler said on Tuesday. "Now we're mostly
standing around and looking around. We just find things to do when we can today. But
once this is over, I bet we'll be twice as busy."
The rough seas and winds aren't all bad, though - scientists have said they could
help break apart the oil and make it evaporate faster.
The wave action, combined with dispersants sprayed by the Coast Guard, have helped
break a 9.65km-by-48.27km oil patch into smaller patches, Coast Guard Commander Joe
Higgens said.
Jefferson Parish Council member Chris Roberts said the oil was entering passes on
Tuesday at Barataria Bay, home to diverse wildlife. A day earlier, barges that had
been placed in the bay to block the oil were removed because of rough seas. Boom was
being displaced and had to be repositioned, he said in an email.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement - formerly the
Minerals Management Service said 28 platforms and three rigs in the path of the
storm in the western Gulf have been evacuated.
Still in the water are vessels being used to capture or burn spewing oil and gas and
those drilling relief wells that officials say are the best hope for stopping the
leak for good.
A third vessel that would ramp up how much oil is being captured or burned was
delayed by the weather, said the government's pointsman for the spill, Coast Guard
Admiral Thad Allen. It was expected to be done this week, but now won't be online
until next week.
Hurricane warnings were posted for parts of the coast along Mexico and Texas. Except
for the border area itself, though, most of the warning area is lightly populated.
So far, between 315 million litres and 620 million litres of oil have spewed into
the Gulf from the broken BP well, according to government and BP estimates. The
higher estimate is enough oil to fill half of New York's Empire State Building with
oil.