Coast Guard:Louisiana Braces For More Storms As It Contains Spill

2nd Jul 2010 19:00

HOUSTON (Dow Jones)--Louisiana is still feeling the effects of the remnants of Hurricane Alex, and efforts to prevent oil from reaching the state's inland ecosystems could be further delayed by thunderstorms forecast this weekend, a U.S. Coast Guard admiral said Friday. Adm. Paul Zukunft said he is most concerned that the stormy weather could push oil, which is emanating from BP PLC's (BP, BP.LN) broken well about 50 miles off the state's coast, into Lake Pontchartrain. "For me, that's where I'm losing the most sleep right now. I'm not here to say that it is there, but I'm going to look and if I see even sheen I'm going to push to make sure that we are moving every and all available resources to respond to this particular area," Zukunft said at a news conference, just before boarding a reconnaissance flight. "We're really trying to mitigate anything getting into these ecosystems that have not experienced any oil impact." Already oil is covering 450 miles of coastline, Zukunft said. The bad weather has prevented about 20,000 barrels of oil a day from either being skimmed or burned in situ for the last two days, Zukunft said. Some of the skimming and burning could continue to be delayed for the next 96 hours, Zukunft said. -By Susan Daker, Dow Jones Newswires; (713) 547-9208; [email protected] (END) Dow Jones Newswires July 02, 2010 14:00 ET (18:00 GMT)