Deputy sherriffs stand guard at a beach on Grand Isle, La., which were closed as the oil spill reached the shore. (Imani M. Cheers/NYT Institute)

President Barack Obama took full responsibility for controlling the oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico at a White House news conference Thursday, but said the government would continue to rely on BP for cleanup efforts because of their superior technology and expertise.

“It is my job to make sure that everything is done to shut this down,” he said. “The government is fully engaged and I’m fully engaged.”

The takeover of responsibility was a shift for the administration, which previously had said BP should make the major decisions because it had caused the leak, and had the technology. Now, BP will follow government orders on stopping the leak and cleaning the spill.

After a request from the Environmental Protection Agency, BP reduced its use of dispersants to break up the oil, because of the unknown long-term impact.

“Given the complexity of this procedure and the depth of the leak, this procedure gives no guarantee of success,” Obama said. “Process could take months.”

The president is scheduled to visit the Gulf on Friday morning to assess the damage from the oil spill.

The U.S. Coast Guard reports that “top kill” efforts in the Gulf of Mexico are making progress, but are far from completion. On Wednesday, BP began to inject mud into the well in order to plug the oil leak, but BP temporarily stopped the procedure late Wednesday when engineers found too much of the drilling fluid was escaping, but resumed it on Thursday.

Scientists have also found that more oil is leaking from the blown well than originally estimated. The U.S. Geological Survey findings range from 504,000 gallons to more than a million gallons leaking each day; BP had originally reported the amount as 210,000 gallons. It is estimated that the spill has surpassed the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill as the worst in U.S. history.

“Now we know the true scale of the monster we are fighting in the Gulf,” Jeremy Symons, senior vice president of the National Wildlife Federation told The Associated Press. “BP has unleashed an unstoppable force of appalling proportions.”

The new estimate of how much oil is flowing “does not and will not change the response,” Steve Rinehart, a BP spokesman, told The AP. “We are going all out on our response.”

Researchers at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science have also discovered a new plume of oil beneath the gulf. The plume stretches 22 miles northeast from the well leak, the second plume recorded since the explosion.

Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen has approved portions of Louisiana’s $350 million proposal to build a wall of sand to protect the coastline from oil.

To date, federal officials said the oil spill has cost the government $87 million, the third-most expensive cleanup in U.S. history. BP officials said they would reimburse the government for “all legitimate claims.”

The president announced that a moratorium on new deepwater oil drilling permits would continue for six months while a federal commission investigates the spill. Obama plans to implement aggressive new operating standards and requirements for oil companies after the investigation. The government will also require certification of emergency cutoff valves on offshore oil wells.

The spill investigation and cleanup continues to hit roadblocks.

As the investigative hearings continue Thursday, BP’s Deepwater Horizon well site leader refused to testify, pleading the Fifth Amendment.

Elizabeth Birnbaum, director of U.S. Minerals Management Service, the department conducting the joint spill investigation with the U.S. Coast Guard, resigned today after criticism of poor oversight and unethical ties to the oil industry.

After some workers on commercial ships cleaning the oil in the Gulf complained of nausea and several were hospitalized, the Coast Guard pulled commercial vessels from the effort. The Louisiana Department of Health also warned oil spill workers of poison oak, chiggers and alligators while in the Gulf.
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The “top killing” began Wednesday afternoon — a procedure BP hopes will finally plug the open well that has leaked at least 7 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico for more than a month. Mud and cement are being pumped into the well to stop the flow of oil and possibly seal the leak.

BP officials say there’s a 60 percent chance the procedure will work, but it may take up to two days to find out.

Miles away from the action, the Coast Guard and the Minerals Management Service held joint investigative hearings in Kenner, La., to find out what caused the explosion. Doug Brown, chief mechanic on the Deepwater Horizon rig, which exploded April 20, testified on Wednesday.

Brown told a six-member panel that 11 hours before the rig exploded, a BP official overruled drillers from Transocean, the company that owns the rig. Brown said the BP official wanted to use seawater instead of drilling mud to plug the well until it was ready for production, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.

Drilling mud is a manufactured claylike mixture used to exert pressure on the pipe and prevent oil and gas from escaping from the top. Using seawater, which is lighter than the mud, allowed gas to escape, igniting a fire, according to documents from the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Capt. Carl Smith, a former Coast Guard captain serving as an expert witness for the panel, said using seawater made no sense.

“That’s something you learn at well control school,” Smith said. “If you’re circulating fluid, you need to monitor how much is going in and how much is coming out. If you get more fluid out than in, it’s an indicator that something’s going on.”

Hearings will continue through Saturday.

BP said its response to the oil spill has cost the company more than $750 million so far. The company has hired more than 20,000 people to assist with the cleanup efforts as contractors, subcontractors and boom laborers, said John Curry, BP spokesman.

The company said 25,000 claims for damages have been filed so far, and 12,000 claimants have received about $29 million in payments.

Meanwhile, the state is threatening to take over the handling of the cleanup, saying it is dissatisfied with the federal government’s slow response and BP’s inability to stop the leak. However, the state has minimal experience managing disasters of this magnitude.

As Louisiana’s frustrations mount, the number of people who have lost jobs because of the spill is adding to the state’s unemployment rate. Louisiana labor officials estimate nearly 18,000 jobs have been lost in manufacturing, construction and the petroleum industry already, and unemployment will continue to rise as a result of the oil spill.

Louisiana also fears its natural wildlife and multi-million-dollar seafood industry could be destroyed for years to come, the Associated Press reported.

President Barack Obama is expected to arrive in Louisiana on Friday to review the status of the cleanup efforts continuing along the coast. He will address a Department of the Interior review of offshore drilling. The department is expected to suggest stricter protocol and inspections for the oil industry.

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Nearly 40 oyster fishermen met Tuesday with state officials, lawyers and a representative from an oyster crop insurance company at the University of New Orleans to discuss how the Gulf of Mexico oil spill has impacted their industry.

The Louisiana Oyster Task Force comprises officials from the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, the Department of Natural Resources, the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and commercial fishermen. The task force, a division of Louisiana’s Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board, hopes to meet with BP representatives next week to express concern about the future of the seafood industry.

Oil has been spotted on the beaches and coastal wetlands of Louisiana, forcing 13 of 28 oyster beds to close.

The fishermen are especially concerned about the chemical dispersant BP is using to quell the oil spill. Task force members said they were fearful that the chemical, Corexit, would limit the reproduction of oysters, a key product for the fishermen.

“There are a lot of ‘what ifs,’” said Dr. Jimmy Guidry, a public health officer. “There are a lot of unanswered questions.”

Patrick Banks, a marine fisheries biologist for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, shared a similar sentiment, but said it’s too early to tell if the chemical dispersants being used are having an effect on oyster reproduction.

Guidry said the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals has submitted a seafood safety plan to the governor requesting that BP pay to test seafood for the next five to 10 years to determine if it is safe to eat, and help fund seafood marketing efforts. BP has already given the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board $2 million for public service messages saying that seafood is safe to eat.

“We’re trying to keep our market alive,” said Ewell Smith, executive director of the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board.

Lawyers at the meeting encouraged affected fishermen to file joint claims for loss of business. The claims may be the only way many of the fishermen will be compensated.

Robert Cerda, president of Crop Insurance Systems, explained that crop insurance was designed to protect against natural disasters and that the oil spill was excluded from insurance coverage.

“Crop insurance is not going to help,” said Cerda.

As a result, the fishermen voted at the meeting to request that the U.S. Department of Agriculture waive their insurance premium on their crops.

The federal government Monday declared a fisheries disaster for Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana per a request from the governors of Mississippi and Alabama. The declaration will allow the Gulf states to qualify for additional relief money from the government.

“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,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said in a statement.

Locke noted that the $2 billion fishing industry provides important jobs in the Gulf and is essential to the area’s culture and heritage. He assured business owners that the administration “stands with America’s fishermen, their families and businesses in impacted coastal communities during this challenging time.”

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Oil pollutes the water on Elmers Island on May 22, 2010. (Thaisi H. Da Silva/NYT Institute)

After contentious debate between the Environmental Protection Agency and BP regarding its use of a particular dispersant in the Gulf of Mexico, BP has agreed to lessen the amount it is using to help clean up the massive oil spill.

“They’ve asked us to scale back on the amount we’re using,” said Graham MacEwen, a spokesman for BP. He said the company made the decision Tuesday to comply with the EPA’s request.

BP will cut back its use of the dispersant Corexit, which it has been spraying in the Gulf, by 50 to 75 percent, MacEwen said. He said the company would make up for the decrease in the chemical’s use by increasing skimming the oil off the water and the laying of booms to block the oil.

The EPA feared that Corexit contained high levels of toxicity and offered a list of dispersants it deemed safe. MacEwen said BP didn’t use any of those because it couldn’t get them in the quantities required for the large-scale cleanup.

Meanwhile, in Jackson, Miss., thousands attended a memorial service for the 11 rig workers killed in the Deepwater Horizon explosion on April 20. The men were honored in a memorial service with tributes from country music stars and drilling company executives.

“This is the one of the most difficult days for many of us here,” said Steven Newman, chief executive of Transocean Ltd., the Swiss-based owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig. “But for the families of our 11 lost colleagues, this is just another of many difficult days.”

A new report from the Interior Department’s acting inspector general found that an inspector for the Minerals Management Service, which oversees oil-well drilling, admitted using crystal methamphetamine and said he might have been under the influence of the drug at work. The report cited a variety of violations of federal regulations and ethics rules at the agency’s Louisiana office, which has jurisdiction over the Deepwater Horizon well.

On Wednesday, BP will try to stop the leak with a “top kill” of the well. It includes pumping heavy drilling mud through a device that sits atop the oil-well opening at the sea floor, plugging the leak. BP began testing the “top kill” method Tuesday. If that fails, cement will be used instead.

The top kill method has been used before by BP, but never at the depths where the Deepwater Horizon well is leaking, nearly a mile below sea level. The chances of success are 60 to 70 percent, The Associated Press reported.

Earlier Tuesday, BP told the House subcommittee on energy and the environment that the company would be blacking out its live television feed during the top kill procedure on Wednesday. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., blasted BP, saying, “This BP blackout will obscure a vital moment in this disaster.” Later in day, the company backpedaled and said the live feed would continue.

On Friday, President Barack Obama will be making his second trip to Louisiana since the spill, following a host of administration officials who have come to the state.

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Lifelong resident Cheryl Barnhardt, 50, tears up during a Chalmette Town Hall meeting Monday night with BP representatives. Barnhardt asked, "Do people not realize how horrendous this can be?" BP representatives were on hand to discuss community concerns and answer questions. (Thaisi H. Da Silva/NYT Institute)

Erwin Menesses didn’t wait for the microphone to be passed to him.

“It’s not just money; it’s more than money!” he yelled. “I don’t see BP coming to help me save my heritage yet. That’s important to me just as any money.”

Menesses, a 43-year-old net maker, was one of more than 100 frustrated and angry audience members who attended a town hall meeting between BP representatives and a concerned community of St. Bernard Parish residents, fishermen and local officials on Monday night at the Frederick J. Sigur Civic Center.

Menesses, who spent his life catering to the commercial fishing industry, said that if fishermen aren’t working, he can’t make nets.

“You can’t replace me being able to teach my kid how to fish,” he told BP claims officer Alan Carpenter.

Carpenter, a Louisiana native, apologized to Menesses and said, “nobody can replace a heritage, but we’re going to do the best we can to help you make it through this circumstance.”

He said he recognized that $5,000, the maximum amount BP is offering at one time to commercial fishermen for loss of income, was not adequate.

“BP completely understands that the $5,000 reward will not compensate you all for your loss,” he said.

Many of the questions aimed at BP revolved around environmental concerns and claims for loss of income, while others just wanted to know how BP could have allowed the disaster to occur.

“It used to be catch and release, and now it’s catch and grease,” said Robert Campo, a commercial fisherman and resident of Shell Beach, La., where he runs Campo’s Marina, his family-owned and operated marina. Campo said his business has already been affected by the oil spreading along the Louisiana shoreline.

The meeting on Monday was the first of three town hall meetngs organized to discuss cleanup efforts and solutions. The next two meetings will be held Tuesday night and Wednesday night in Plaquemines Parish.

St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro, who had returned from a flyover earlier Monday, told the audience that the bulk of the oil was seen 19 miles off the southern tip of the Chandeleur Islands. The parish will set up monitoring areas at Breton Sound and Shell Beach, coastal areas near the parish that are at risk for contamination.

Taffaro said that during his morning flight, he also visited Point Lydia, an area already affected by the spill, where the grass was brown and dead because of the oil that had washed on shore. “This issue affects more than just commercial fishermen,” said Taffaro.

Taffaro and parish officials said they would continue to monitor the situation and patrol along Breton Sound and Shell Beach shores to catch the oil as it starts to wash up. Taffaro said a major concern is where the oil is headed.

“The plan of action that we have come up with and continue to push is to get as many resources and assets out into the water,” said Taffaro.

He said a skim boat had been sent from St. Bernard Parish Monday to the Chandeleur Islands to assess the damage and collected 72 barrels of oil. “That’s one boat on one day,” he said. “That’s a drop in a bucket to what’s actually behind it.”

U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Robert Forgit of the Incident Command in Houma said coast guard officials hope on Wednesday to stop the flow of oil from the site of the BP rig that exploded and burned on April 20.

Forgit said officials plan to plug the oil flow with mud, in a method known as a top kill. Officials will also continue to use dispersants and controlled burning, a method that has burned 68,000 barrels to date. The Coast Guard has applied 1.1 million feet of boom around the affected coastline.

“We are advising and encouraging BP to provide more resources,” Forgit said. “We are working as that regulatory authority to ensure that BP cleans up the oil and bring those beaches and marshes that were impacted back to the state that they were.”

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Oil-soaked gauze awaits pickup on Elmer's Island in Grand Isle, La., as new gauze lines the shore. (April Buffington/NYT Institute)

The Obama administration’s oil spill specialist on Monday rejected the notion of taking over the crisis, despite BP’s many failed attempts to stop the leak, according to The Associated Press.

“To push BP out of the way would raise a question, to replace them with what?” said Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen, who is heading the federal response to the spill.

The federal government has faced criticism for not doing enough to bring the spill under control.

BP announced on Monday that it would spend up to $500 million on research to study the impact of the spill, which was caused by an explosion April 20 at the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling platform that killed 11 workers. BP said it would finance studies of responses to marine and shoreline seepage.

The announcement came as a mile-long tube inserted into the well in the Gulf of Mexico continues to lose effectiveness.

The tube collected some 47,040 gallons of oil on Sunday, 57,120 gallons on Saturday and 92,400 gallons on Friday, BP spokesman John Curry told The Associated Press.

Even as BP was making its $500 million commitment, both house of Congress were preparing to vote to quadruple an oil tax that is used to help finance cleanups, raising it to 32 cents a barrel, according to The AP. The increase would raise nearly $11 billion over the next decade for a fund managed by the Coast Guard to help clean up spills in waterways like the Gulf of Mexico. The Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund has about $1.5 billion available now. Under current law, only $1 billion can be spent from the fund on a single incident. The bill would increase the spending limit to $5 billion.

More than 4,600 people affected by the Gulf oil spill have been receiving assistance in the forms of emergency food, crisis counseling and case management through Catholic charities since May 1, the Archdiocese of New Orleans said Monday.

Also on Monday, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries reopened waters south of Marsh Island in Iberia and Vermilion parishes to recreational and commercial fishing.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser and other officials will host meetings to answer additional questions. The Tuesday meeting will be in the gym at Boothville Venice Elementary School, and Wednesday’s meeting in the gym at Phoenix High School. Both start at 6 p.m.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation held off on a decision to consolidate more than 130 lawsuits filed over the Gulf oil spill, according to an order released Monday.

The panel denied requests from attorneys to issue a ruling this month, planning to consider the oil spill cases in July.

Plaintiffs include fishermen, the seafood industry, property owners, restaurants, tourism businesses and others claiming economic damages caused by the spill.

The Minerals Management Service and the U.S. Coast Guard will have public hearings at the Radisson New Orleans Airport in the Bayou Meeting Room from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

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Cuong Nguyen, a fisher and shrimper for 22 years who speaks only Vietnamese, has had his livelihood threatened by the devastating BP oil spill. Faced with a bureaucratic claims process and red tape stretching as long as the Gulf Coast, Nguyen said the prospects of getting money and assistance seemed daunting.

But he and dozens of other fisherman and workers, many of them Vietnamese, braved the heat and lined up at 8 a.m. Monday to attend an informational fair for oil spill victims, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao, R-La.

Rosalind Peychaud, deputy chief of staff for Congressman Cao’s office, said that with the recent closings of Gulf fisheries the congressional office knew it had to act fast to assist the people.

“There’s all kinds of things happening for resources,” she said.

With interpreters stationed around the Alario Center in Westwego, La., the event featured briefings on the oil spill, arrangements for filing reimbursement claims, training for spill cleanup and information booths staffed by local health and social organizations.

BP, whose oil rig exploded in the Gulf last month, sent several representatives to take questions. The company relayed basic information regarding the oil spill and told the audience that the dispersants used to clean the oil were no more toxic than the oil itself.

During the town hall meeting that opened the fair, Larry Thomas, BP ‘s general manager of public and government affairs for the Lower 48 states and the Gulf of Mexico, tried to counter the impression that his company had not aggressively responded to the crisis for Gulf residents.

“People aren’t asking for handouts,” Thomas said. “There are some passionate folks and we understand the issues. There’s this perception that we’re sitting around and not doing things. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

Mayor John Shaddinger Jr. of Westwego said he was pleased that Congressman Cao’s office had planned the event so quickly.

“Similar events have been taking place, but not to this magnitude to include Vessels of Opportunity, food stamps and training,” he said. “It’s really, from what I understand, the only one of this type.”

Nguyen, who lived through Hurricane Katrina was now facing a new disaster and needed information fast. He said, through a translator, that the fair had made it convenient to get that. But even with more resources at their disposal, he said his community fears most what no one knows – just how bad things will get.

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This is an update of an earlier article.

For the past month, Laura Underwood, a hair stylist in Houma, La., has swept the floor of the Aha! salon, gathering hair clippings and stuffing them into grocery bags. She also asked other salons for their leftover hair but under one condition—that they wash it first. Before long, the back of her SUV was filled with bags of hair, making it hard to see out of her back window.

A Matter of Trust volunteer at the Destin, Fla., warehouse packing hair and fur donated from around the world into nylon pantyhose. The organization is hoping these hair booms will be used to aid the Gulf Coast oil spill. (Lisa Gautier/Matter of Trust)

Underwood, an environmental activist, is gathering hair clippings for hair booms. She understood that the nylons packed with hair and fur would be used to clean up the most recent oil spill. Matter of Trust, the organization that initiated the hair craze, is encouraging donors like Underwood to drop off the hair and fur that donors would otherwise dispose of.

“I love to clean up,” said Underwood. “I think they rely on modern technology too much, and sometimes they need to step back and see that nature works better.”

Underwood, who also works for animal rescue, discovered Matter of Trust while visiting Internet sites for ideas on ways to help the oil spill relief efforts. Being a hairstylist, she jumped at the opportunity to donate hair and wrote to other activists about the plan.

“I just wrote on all of my Facebook friends’ walls, and before I knew it, some guy from California was contacting me about shaving his sheep and sending me the fur,” she said.

Since this campaign began in April, Matter of Trust has received similar responses. As of May 5, the organization said it had received over 400,000 pounds of hair and fur.

It has been unable to update these numbers because of the overwhelming response, said Lisa Gautier, president of Matter of Trust.

“It is pouring in now from all over North America and beyond,” Gautier said in an e-mail interview. “And we weren’t counting on the alpaca farms—we have to do a new tally.”

According to Gautier, the 35,000 participating salons each cut about one pound of hair per day and dog groomers cut three to five pounds per day. In addition to this, classrooms, scouting troops and plenty of individuals are donating their own hair.

“It goes on and on,” Gautier said. “There is so much hair.”

Matter of Trust has been storing the hair donated in 19 warehouses along the Gulf Coast preparing for the word from local hazardous materials teams that the hair was needed. They might be waiting longer than they anticipated, though, after the latest announcement by the Deepwater Horizon Response Team. The team said on Friday that it was no longer considering hair booms as an option to soak up the oil.

“Our priority when cleaning up an oil spill is to find the most efficient and expedient way to remove the oil from the affected area while causing no additional damage,” said Charlie Henry, NOAA’s Scientific Support Coordinator in Robert, La. Hair booms were used in a field test in Texas, but, “One problem with the hair boom is that it became waterlogged and sank within a short period of time,” Henry said. It also did not collect as much oil as commercial booms.

The Deepwater Horizon Response Team and BP have ruled out the use of hair booms, but they do encourage suggestions for more cleanup solutions.

“As of yesterday there were 77,000 calls made to the call center and 21,000 e-mails,” a BP spokesman, John Curry, said. “Clearly there are lots of people that want to provide ideas; maybe that’s how this thing started, but I don’t know.”

Curry also stressed that it was not BP’s decision to reject the idea of the hair booms but was the call of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Although it seems this entire project has been a waste of time, Gautier believes it will work out.

“The county hazmat teams are mad and contacting us,” she said, though she would not say which authorities she had been in touch with. “We are lovers, not fighters. This is a good karma program; it will all work out as it should. It’s a Matter of Trust.”

Underwood is also not discouraged and still believes that the hair booms are a good idea. She says that public pressure has helped in situations like this before and it might again. She is still encouraging her clients to continue gathering their trimmings and is even looking for customers to shed a bit more for the cause.

“People shave their head for cancer every day,” she said. “So why not for the earth?”

Rosa Warren contributed reporting

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