A large swathe of the Gulf of Mexico remained closed to fishing Wednesday as fears that a giant oil slick could hit Florida's beaches and corals reefs overshadowed progress in stemming the spill.
The closure, which hit some 45,728 square miles (118,430 square kilometers) -- around 19 per cent of the Gulf's federal waters, was announced Tuesday as politicians in Washington raged over the apparently lax enforcement of safety standards and grilled government officials over what went wrong.
While lawmakers probed the disaster, the chief of the US agency monitoring the spill warned that the "unprecedented and dynamic" slick was on course to sweep along Florida's coastline, if it had not already reached the region.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) chief Jane Lubchenco told reporters the oil was "increasingly likely" to reach the powerful Gulf current that would carry it to the Florida Keys and perhaps even beyond.
But she said that by the time the oil reaches the Florida Strait -- within eight to 12 days of entering the loop current -- "it would likely be significantly weathered and degraded as well as diluted," showing up in the form of emulsified streamers and tar balls rather than fresh crude.
Experts meanwhile analyzed at least 20 tar stains found on several beaches of Florida's southern Keys to determine whether they came from the spill.
Senator Bill Nelson described the prospect of oil hitting his state of Florida and heading up the US eastern seaboard as his "worst nightmare".
The bleak warnings obscured BP's positive reports on progress in its month-long effort to contain the leak: a tube inserted into a gushing oil pipe is now sucking up about 40 per cent of the crude, twice as much as on Monday.
To watch a recent video of An Aerial View of Skimming, please click here.(Video: U.S. Navy video by Petty Officer 1st Class David G. Crawford)
The company said its "riser insertion tube tool" is carrying about 2,000 barrels of oil a day up to the Discoverer Enterprise drill ship on the surface via a mile-long pipe.
BP estimates that some 5,000 barrels, or 210,000 gallons, of crude is spewing each day from the wreckage of the Deepwater Horizon rig, although independent experts warn the flow rate could be at least 10 times as much.
President Barack Obama voiced frustration with Republican lawmakers over hold-ups to a measure that would force oil companies to pay for the clean-up of spills in which they have played a role.
"I am disappointed that an effort to ensure that oil companies pay fully for disasters they cause has stalled in the United States Senate on a partisan basis," he said in a statement after Senator James Inhofe blocked a second attempt to pass a bill on an expedited course.
Questions of ultimate liability have raged in the wake of the 20 April explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig that sank to the sea floor. US law requires that oil firms pay up to USD 75 million for economic damages, but the president and Democratic lawmakers have tried to raise the cap.
The economic and environmental impact of the spill could be magnified if it reaches the hugely popular tourist beaches and fragile coral reefs around the southern tip of Florida.
There are also concerns that huge underwater plumes of crude could be starving the Gulf of oxygen and thus harming the marine environment far more than previously thought.
Experts warned that the plumes found in deepwater spills may be linked to dispersants that stop the oil from rising.
"Normally, in a shallow spill, everything pretty much shoots up to the surface and the impacts are primarily to surface organisms like turtles, dolphins, whales and birds," explained Paul Montagna of the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies.
However, "under this really cold, high-pressure environment, the oil is getting dispersed through the water column," the marines scientist said.
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