Salazar blasts BP as oil fallout mounts
Amid criticism that the White House is ceding too much power to BP, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar rebukes the company for missing "deadline after deadline." NBC’s Mike Viqueira reports.

No plans  to use hair for spill containment
Oil dispersants an environmental ‘crapshoot’
Anger  flows as oil reaches bayou town
Amid  growing outrage, Jindal appeals for help
Oil  oozes into Gulf's marshes
Gulf  fishermen fear for livelihood

  Government offers few answers on oil spill
  May 24: With frustrations growing on the Gulf Coast and oil coming ashore, the White House found itself on the defensive Monday over its handling of the crisis. NBC's Chuck Todd reports. 

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.

Home » Gulf oil spill

Coast Guard chief: BP best hope to plug leak

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COVINGTON, Louisiana - The Obama administration's point man on the oil spill rejected the notion of removing BP PLC and taking over the crisis Monday, saying the government has neither the company's expertise nor its deep-sea equipment.

"To push BP out of the way, it would raise the question, to replace them with what?" Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen, who is heading the federal response to the spill, said at a White House briefing.

The White House is facing increasing questions about why the government can't assert more control over the handling of the catastrophe, which unfolded after a BP offshore drilling rig blew up April 20.

All of BP's attempts to stop the leak have failed, despite the British oil giant's use of joystick-operated submarine robots that can operate at depths no human could withstand. Millions of gallons of brown crude are now coating birds and other wildlife and fouling the Louisiana marshes.

BP is pinning its hopes of stopping the gusher on yet another technique never tested 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) underwater: a "top kill," in which heavy mud and cement would be shot into the blown-out well to plug it up. The top kill could begin as early as Wednesday, with BP CEO Tony Hayward giving it a 60 to 70 percent chance of success.

Allen said federal law dictated that BP had to operate the cleanup, with the government overseeing its efforts.

"They're exhausting every technical means possible to deal with that leak," he said. "I am satisfied with the coordination that's going on."

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar suggested over the weekend that the government could intervene aggressively if BP wasn't delivering. "If we find that they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing, we'll push them out of the way appropriately," he said.

But asked about that comment Monday, Allen said: "That's more of a metaphor."

Allen said BP and the government are working closely together, with the government holding veto power and adopting an "inquisitorial" stand toward the company's ideas. The commandant also said the government has the authority to tell BP what to do, and such orders carry the force of law.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano also took a more measured tone at a news conference Monday in Galliano, Louisiana, with Salazar and six U.S. senators who had flown over the coast to see the damage. "We continue to hold BP responsible as the responsible party, but we are on them, watching them," she said.

BP said it is doing all it can to stop the leak   Its chief operating officer, Doug Suttles, made the rounds of network morning news shows to say that the company understands people are frustrated.

"Clearly Secretary Salazar is telling us that we need to do this as expediently as we can," Suttles said. "And of course we are."

'We will clean every last drop'Hayward, BP's chief executive, walked along oil-soaked Fourchon Beach and said he had underestimated the possible environmental effects.

"I'm as devastated as you are by what I've seen here today," Hayward told reporters after he spoke with cleanup workers in white overalls and yellow boots, some shoveling oily sand into garbage cans. "We are going to do everything in our power to prevent any more oil from coming ashore, and we will clean every last drop up and we will remediate all of the environmental damage."

Mark Kellstrom, an analyst with Summit, New Jersey-based Strategic Energy Research, said time might be running out for BP to continue calling the shots. "The rhetoric is growing up in Washington for the politicians to kick out BP and let the government take over," Kellstrom said, though he added that it would be a mistake.

BP had hoped to try a top kill earlier but needed more time to get equipment into place and test it. A top kill has worked on aboveground oil wells in Kuwait and Iraq but has never before been attempted so far underwater.

Suttles said the biggest technical challenge is that the fluid must be pumped in very quickly, and engineers need to make sure it goes into the well, not out through the leaking pipe, which could make the leak worse.

A containment device is on the seafloor, ready to be put in place if the top kill fails or makes the leak worse. It is a smaller version of a 100-ton box that BP lowered several weeks ago in hopes of capturing much of the oil. But it got clogged with icy crystals, and BP was forced to abandon it.

Backup plansEngineers are working on several other backup plans in case the top kill doesn't work, including injecting assorted junk into the well to clog it up, and lowering a new blowout preventer on top of the one that failed.

The only certain permanent solution is a pair of relief wells crews have already started drilling, but the task could take at least two months.

In another source of tension between BP and the government, the company was still using a certain chemical dispersant Monday to fight the oil despite orders from the Environmental Protection Agency to employ something less toxic. 

"If we can find an alternative that is less toxic and available, we will switch to that product," Suttles said. "To date, we've struggled to find an alternative either that had less risk to the environment or that was readily available."

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson called BP's response "insufficient."

Others have blamed the administration for not doing enough, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who said Sunday on Fox News that Obama was being lax in his response to the spill.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs called the criticism ill-informed and suggested Palin needed a blowout preventer, the technical term for the device intended to prevent an oil spill from becoming a full-scale catastrophe. The phrase has entered the political vernacular since the one on the Gulf well failed.

"You've got to have a license to drive a car in this country, but regrettably you can get on a TV show and say virtually anything," Gibbs said.

BP said Monday its costs for the spill had grown to about $760 million, including containment efforts, drilling a relief well to stop the leak permanently, grants to Gulf states for their response costs, and payment of damage claims. BP said it's too early to calculate other potential costs and liabilities.

Suttles said BP is working with experts from other oil companies and the government to find a solution.

Obama faces criticism over oil spill

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Protesters pose nearly naked at BP HQ

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Activists staged a nearly naked protest to bring attention to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Related Photos

Codepink activisits took their message to the public in front of the BP headquarters on Westlake Park Boulevard just before noon Monday

Dozens of Codepink activisits, in a women-led, women-initiated action, took their message to the public in front of the BP headquarters on Westlake Park Boulevard just before noon Monday. The women posed nearly naked, dripping with 'oil' and dragging nets of fish. The protesters mourned the deaths of the 11 workers and devastation of wildlife and livelihoods all along the Gulf Coast.
"At the BP headquarters we will put our bodies on the line to hold BP accountable for the rape and plunder of our planet," says Diane Wilson, a fourth generation fisherwoman from the Gulf who joined the protest. "We call for stripping BP of its corporate charter and seizing its assets to pay the victims, clean up the Gulf and try to restore the devastated wildlife."
The Codepink protesters are calling for BP to be held accountable, for an end to offshore drilling and for a total restructuring of US energy towards renewable sources.