Coast Guard chief: BP best hope to plug leak

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'Everyone is frustrated'"What I do know is, everyone is frustrated. I think the people of the region are frustrated. I know we are, I know the government is," Suttles said on TODAY. "The fact that it's taken this long is painful to everybody."

At least 6 million gallons of crude have spewed into the Gulf, according to a Coast Guard and BP estimate of how much is coming out, though some scientists say they believe the spill has already surpassed the 11 million-gallon 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska as the worst in U.S. history.

A mile-long tube operating for about a week has siphoned off more than half a million gallons, but it began sucking up oil at a slower rate over the weekend, and even at its best it wasn't capturing all of what is leaking.

The spill's impact on shore now stretches across 150 miles, from Dauphin Island, Ala. to Grand Isle, La.

With oil pushing at least 12 miles into marshes in his state and two major pelican rookeries coated in crude, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said crews have begun work on a chain of berms made with sandbags, reinforced with containment booms, that would skirt the state's coastline.

"This oil threatens not only our coast and our wetlands, this oil fundamentally threatens our way of life in southeastern Louisiana," he said at Monday's press conference.

On Barataria Bay, some brown pelicans coated in oil could do little more than hobble. Their usually brown and white feathers were jet black, and eggs were glazed with rust-colored gunk.

The birds got spooked when wildlife officials tried to rescue one, and officials were not sure they would try again.

Pelicans vulnerablePelicans are especially vulnerable to oil because they dive into the water to feed. They could eat tainted fish and feed it to their young, or they could die of hypothermia or drown if their feathers become soaked in oil. The birds were removed from the federal endangered species list just six months ago.

Oil has also reached a 1,150-acre oyster ground leased by Belle Chasse, La., fisherman Dave Cvitanovich. He said cleanup crews were stringing lines of absorbent boom along the surrounding marshes, but that still left large clumps of rust-colored oil floating over his oyster beds. Mature oysters might eventually filter out the crude and become fit for sale, but this year's crop of young oysters will perish.

"Those will die in the oil," Cvitanovich said. "It's inevitable."

Due to the oil spill, the U.S. government on Monday declared a "fishery disaster" in Louisiana, Mississippi and  Alabama, making them eligible for federal funds, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said Monday.

"The disaster determination will help ensure that the Federal government is in a position to mobilize the full range of assistance that fishermen and fishing communities may need," Locke said in a statement.

Officials said last week that 264 birds, sea turtles and dolphins had been found dead or stranded on shore that may have been affected by the spill, though Roger Helm, chief of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's contaminants division, said the death toll is certain to rise as the oil moves deeper into the marshes. In contrast, hundreds of thousands of birds, otters and other animals were killed after the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989.

Helm said the biggest reason for the relatively low death toll from the Gulf spill is that until recently, most of the oil remained far out to sea.

"But if the oil does really start fouling up the marshes, you can expect the numbers of oiled birds to go up significantly," he said.

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