New efforts to stem Gulf oil leak

A crane is lifting a giant oil containment box off of a ship and is preparing to lower it 5,000 feet (1,520m) into the Gulf of Mexico in an unprecedented attempt to divert an oil leak.

The 100-ton concrete-and-steel box arrived at the leak site about 50 miles (80km) off the Louisiana coast earlier Thursday (local time).

The mission has taken on added urgency as oil started washing up on delicate barrier islands.

Crews are hoping the box can cut off most of the hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil spewing from a blown-out well, but caution this system has never been tried at this depth.

"We haven't done this before. It's very complex and we can't guarantee it," BP spokesman David Nicholas warned.

The technology has been used a few times in shallow waters, but never at such extreme depths - 5,000 feet (1,520m) down, where the water pressure is enough to crush a submarine.

If it works, the system could collect as much as 85 per cent of the oil that's been leaking from the ocean floor after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20, killing 11 workers.

And should the mission succeed, a second box now being built may be used to deal with a second, smaller leak from the sea floor.

"Hopefully, it will work better than they expect," the boat's first mate, Douglas Peake, told AP.

More than 200,000 gallons (757,000 litres) of oil a day is pouring from the well.

The dropping of the box is just one of many strategies being pursued to stave off a widespread environmental disaster. BP is drilling sideways into the blown-out well in hopes of plugging it from the bottom.

Also, oil company engineers are examining whether the leak could be shut off by sealing it from the top instead.

The technique, called a "top kill," would use a tube to shoot mud and concrete directly into the well's blowout preventer, BP spokesman Bill Salvin said. The process would take two to three weeks, compared with the two to three months needed to drill a relief well.

Meanwhile, a six-member board composed of representatives of the Coast Guard and the federal Minerals Management Service will begin investigating the accident next week.

And a federal judicial panel in Washington has been asked to consolidate at least 65 potential class-action lawsuits claiming economic damage from the spill.

Commercial fishermen, business and resort owners, charter boat captains, even would-be vacationers have sued from Texas to Florida, seeking damages that could reach into the billions.

"It's just going to kill us. It's going to destroy us," said Dodie Vegas, who owns a motel and cabins in Grand Isle, Louisiana, and has seen 10 guests cancel.

- AP