BP Plc engineers searched on Sunday for ways to control gushing oil from a ruptured Gulf of Mexico well after a setback with a huge metal containment dome dashed hopes for a quick, temporary solution to a growing environmental disaster.BP was pondering its next move after a buildup of crystallized gas in the dome forced engineers to suspend efforts to place the four-story chamber over the rupture, the company's best short-term solution to containing the spill.The mammoth dome was set aside on the sea floor while BP seeks solutions -- a process it said could take two days."People are working around the clock at BP headquarters," U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen told National Public Radio. But conducting operations at depths of one mile (1.6 km) below the surface was complicating the challenge, he said."We're actually dealing with a source that doesn't have human access," Allen said.At least 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons/795,000 litres) of oil a day is gushing unchecked into the Gulf since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 crew members and rupturing the well.The spill, which could become the worst in U.S. history, threatens economic and ecological disaster on Gulf Coast tourist beaches, wildlife refuges and fishing grounds. It has forced President Barack Obama to rethink plans to open more waters to drilling.BP engineers planned to take the next few days seeking ways to overcome the containment dome's problem with gas hydrates -- essentially slushy methane gas that would block the oil from being siphoned out the top of the box.OTHER OPTIONSThe company had warned there was no guarantee of success for the dome. Possible solutions could include heating the area or adding methanol to break up the hydrates, Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said.If the problem is solved, engineers would attach a pipe to the dome and pump the captured oil to a surface tanker. The goal was to capture about 85 percent of the leaking crude.BP also may try to plug up the damaged blowout preventer on the well by pumping debris into it at high pressure or attaching a new preventer on top of it. It is also drilling a relief well to halt the leak, but that could take three months.Hundreds of boats deployed protective booms and used dispersants to break up the thick oil in the Gulf again on Sunday. Crews have laid more than 900,000 feet (270,000 metres) of boom, and spread 290,000 gallons (1.1 million litres) of chemical dispersant in fighting the growing slick.On Dauphin Island, Alabama, a barrier island and beach resort full of weekend swimmers and beachcombers, sunbathers found tar balls and tar beads washing up on Saturday along a half-mile stretch of the white-sand beach.A team of dozens of BP-contracted workers in rubber boots and gloves was dispatched to lay down special clusters of oil-absorbing synthetic fibers called pom-poms, erect storm fencing along the beach and collect samples of the tar and water for testing. The beach remained open.Dauphin Island Mayor Jeff Collier said he suspected the tar came from the leaking well, but only testing would confirm it.ALARM IN ALABAMAA spokesman for the spill response Unified Command in Mobile said tar washing ashore was a "common occurrence" along Alabama beaches, but some local residents disagreed."I have never seen this and I am here once a week every summer. This is the first time I have seen anything like this here," said Molly Hunter, 34, of Mobile, holding up a chunk of tar about the size of an open hand."All we need is a hurricane to come through and blow it 2 miles (3.2 km) inland. It would contaminate Mobile. It would be awful," stevedore superintendent Adam Fornander said of the spill as his team loaded luggage on Saturday for cruise ship passengers.Crews labored to cordon off the entrance to Mobile Bay with a containment boom fence in a bid to safeguard America's ninth-largest seaport.The barrier, anchored to newly driven pilings and designed with a double gate in the middle to enable ships to pass without letting oil into the bay, was expected to be completed by Sunday evening or early Monday, said Judith Adams of the Alabama State Port Authority.The spill's only major contact with the shoreline so far has been in the uninhabited Chandeleur Islands off Louisiana, mostly a wildlife reserve."Right now, it appears that the impact is localized in southeast Louisiana, with the next areas likely to be impacted, Mississippi and Alabama," Coast Guard chief Allen said.IMPACT ON SEAFOOD INDUSTRYLouisiana officials closed more state waters to shrimp and oyster harvesting as the slick edged westward. Shrimp harvesting is now banned from Freshwater Bayou on the central coast to Louisiana's border with Mississippi. Some oyster beds located west of the Mississippi River were also shut.Seafood is a $2.4 billion industry in Louisiana. More than 30 percent of the seafood produced in the continental United States is harvested in Louisiana.In Bayou La Batre, the heart of Alabama's seafood industry, the docks were largely quiet as thousands of shrimpers and seafood processors remained idled by fishing restrictions.About 30 oyster-processing plants have run out of product and shut down, putting as many as 900 people out of work, said Wayne Eldridge, owner of J&W Marine Enterprises and an oyster plant operator himself."I'm screwed," Eldridge said. "The biggest thing is I've got 35 people unemployed there."(Additional reporting by Anna Driver in Houston; Tom Brown and Pascal Fletcher in Miami; Steve Gorman, Verna Gates and Kelli Dugan in Dauphin Island, Alabama; Writing by Jeffrey Jones and John Whitesides; Editing by Jackie Frank)News posted by www.newsinfoline.com
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