ON THE GULF OF MEXICO (AP) - Workers late Thursday started
lowering a giant concrete-and-steel box over the blown-out oil well
at the bottom of the sea in a risky and untested bid to capture
most of the gushing crude and avert a wider environmental disaster.
A crane lifted the box from the boat named The Joe Griffin and
crews from a second boat started the box on its slow journey a mile
underwater. It would take hours to reach the seafloor.
"We haven't done this before. It's very complex and we can't
guarantee it," BP spokesman David Nicholas warned earlier.
The 100-ton containment vessel is designed to collect as much as
85 percent of the oil spewing into the Gulf and funnel it up to a
tanker. It could take several hours to lower it into place by
crane, after which a steel pipe will be installed between the top
of the box and the tanker. The whole structure could be operating
by Sunday.
The mission took on added urgency as oil started washing up on
delicate barrier islands.
But the lowering of the box was delayed because of dangerous
fumes rising from the oily water in the windless night, the captain
of the supply boat hauling the box told The Associated Press. A
spark caused by the scrape of metal on metal could cause a fire,
Capt. Demi Shaffer said.
Deckhands wore respirators while workers on surrounding vessels
took air-quality readings. Crews later were able to start the work.
Black oil coated the white shell of the box as it was being
lowered.
The technology has been used a few times in shallow waters, but
never at such extreme depths - 5,000 feet down, where the water
pressure is enough to crush a submarine.
The box - which looks a lot like a peaked, 40-foot-high
outhouse, especially on the inside, with its rough timber framing -
must be accurately positioned over the well, or it could damage the
leaking pipe and make the problem worse.
BP spokesman Doug Suttles said he is not concerned about that
happening. Underwater robots have been clearing pieces of pipe and
other debris near where the box will be placed to avoid
complications.
"We do not believe it could make things worse," he said.
Other risks include ice clogs in the pipes - a problem that
crews will try to prevent by continuously pumping in warm water and
methanol - and the danger of explosion when separating the mix of
oil, gas and water that is brought to the surface.
"I'm worried about every part, as you can imagine," said David
Clarkson, BP vice president of engineering projects.
If the box works, a second one now being built may be used to
deal with a second, smaller leak from the sea floor.
"Hopefully, it will work better than they expect," The boat's
first mate, Douglas Peake, told AP, the only news organization on
board the vessel.
The well blew open on April 20 when the Deepwater Horizon
drilling platform exploded 50 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico,
killing 11 workers. It has been spewing an estimated 200,000
gallons a day in the nation's biggest oil spill since the Exxon
Valdez disaster in Alaska in 1989.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Thursday halted all new
offshore drilling permits nationwide until at least the end of the
month while the government investigates the Gulf spill.
Oil slicks stretched for miles off the Louisiana coast, where
desperate efforts were under way to skim, corral and set the
petroleum ablaze. People in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida
watched in despair.
The dropping of the box is just one of many strategies being
pursued to stave off a widespread environmental disaster. BP is
drilling sideways into the blown-out well in hopes of plugging it
from the bottom. Also, oil company engineers are examining whether
the leak could be shut off by sealing it from the top instead.
The technique, called a "top kill," would use a tube to shoot
mud and concrete directly into the well's blowout preventer, BP
spokesman Bill Salvin said. The process would take two to three
weeks, compared with the two to three months needed to drill a
relief well.
On Thursday, oil reached several barrier islands off the
Louisiana coast, many of them fragile animal habitats. Several
birds were spotted diving into the oily, pinkish-brown water, and
dead jellyfish washed up on the uninhabited islands.
"It's all over the place. We hope to get it cleaned up before
it moves up the west side of the river," said Dustin Chauvin, a
20-year-old shrimp boat captain from Terrebonne Parish, La.
"That's our whole fishing ground. That's our livelihood."
During a visit to Biloxi, Miss., Homeland Security Secretary
Janet Napolitano said of the containment vessel: "I hope it works.
But we are still proceeding as if it won't. If it does, of course,
that will be a major positive development."
"We are facing an evolving situation," she warned. "The
possibility remains that the BP oil spill could turn into an
unprecedented environmental disaster. The possibility remains that
it will be somewhat less."
Meanwhile, a six-member board composed of representatives of the
Coast Guard and the federal Minerals Management Service will begin
investigating the accident next week.
And a federal judicial panel in Washington has been asked to
consolidate at least 65 potential class-action lawsuits claiming
economic damage from the spill. Commercial fishermen, business and
resort owners, charter boat captains, even would-be vacationers
have sued from Texas to Florida, seeking damages that could reach
into the billions.
"It's just going to kill us. It's going to destroy us," said
Dodie Vegas, who owns a motel and cabins in Grand Isle, La., and
has seen 10 guests cancel.
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Associated Press writers Ray Henry, Cain Burdeau, Holbrook Mohr
and Vicki Smith in Louisiana, Brian Skoloff in Mississippi and Curt
Anderson in Miami contributed to this story.

(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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