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Oil company engineers on Sunday finally
succeeded in keeping some of the oil gushing from a blown well out
of the Gulf of Mexico, hooking up a mile-long tube to funnel the
crude into a tanker ship after more than three weeks of failures.


      Millions of gallons of crude are already in the water, however,
and researchers said the black ooze may have entered a major
current that could carry it through the Florida Keys and around to
the East Coast.


      BP PLC engineers remotely guiding robot submersibles had worked
since Friday to place the tube into a 21-inch pipe nearly a mile
below the sea. After several setbacks, the contraption was hooked
up successfully and funneling oil to a tanker ship. The oil giant
said it will take days to figure out how much oil its contraption
is sucking up.


      The blown well has been leaking for more than three weeks,
threatening sea life, commercial fishing and the coastal tourist
industry from Louisiana to Florida. BP failed in several previous
attempts to stop the leak, trying in vain to activate emergency
valves and lowering a 100-ton container that got clogged with icy
crystals.


      A researcher told The Associated Press on Sunday that computer
models show the oil may have already seeped into a powerful water
stream known as the loop current, which could propel it into the
Atlantic Ocean. A boat is being sent later this week to collect
samples and learn more.


      William Hogarth, dean of the University of South Florida's
College of Marine Science, said one model shows oil has already
entered the current, while a second shows the oil is 3 miles from
it - still dangerously close. 


The models are based on weather,
ocean current and spill data from the U.S. Navy and the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, among other sources.


      Hogarth said it's still too early to know what specific amounts
of oil will make it to Florida, or what damage it might do to the
sensitive Keys or beaches on Florida's Atlantic coast. He said
claims by BP that the oil would be less damaging to the Keys after
traveling over hundreds of miles from the spill site were not
mollifying.


      "This can't be passed off as 'it's not going to be a
problem.'" Hogarth said. "This is a very sensitive area. We are
concerned with what happens in the Florida Keys."
     

 BP had previously said the tube, if successful, was expected to
collect most of the oil gushing from the well. On Sunday, the
company said it was too early to measure how much crude was being
collected and acknowledged the tube was no panacea.


      "It's a positive move, but let's keep in context," said Kent
Wells, BP's senior vice president for exploration and production.
"We're about shutting down the flow of oil from this well."


      Crews will slowly ramp up how much oil the tube collects over
the next few days. They need to move slowly because they don't want
too much frigid seawater entering the pipe, which could combine
with gases to form the same ice-like crystals that doomed the
previous containment effort.


      Two setbacks over the weekend illustrate how delicate the effort
is. Early Sunday, hours before a steady connection was made,
engineers were able to suck a small amount of oil to the tanker,
but the tube was dislodged. The previous day, equipment used to
insert the tube into the gushing pipe at the ocean floor had to be
hauled to the surface for readjustment.


      The first chance to choke off the flow for good should come in
about a week. Engineers plan to shoot heavy mud into the crippled
blowout preventer on top of the well, then permanently entomb the
leak in concrete. 


If that doesn't work, crews also can shoot golf
balls and knotted rope into the nooks and crannies of the device to
plug it, Wells said.


      The final choice to end the leak is a relief well, but it is
more than two months from completion.


      Top officials in President Barack Obama's administration
cautioned that the tube "is not a solution" to the spill and said
they are closely monitoring the situation.


      "We will not rest until BP permanently seals the wellhead, the
spill is cleaned up, and the communities and natural resources of
the Gulf Coast are restored and made whole," Secretary of Homeland
Security Janet Napolitano and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar
said in a joint statement.


      Meanwhile, scientists warned of the effects of the oil that has
already leaked into the Gulf. Researchers said miles-long
underwater plumes of oil discovered in recent days could poison and
suffocate sea life across the food chain, with damage that could
endure for a decade or more.


      Researchers have found more underwater plumes of oil than they
can count from the well, said Samantha Joye, a professor of marine
sciences at the University of Georgia. She said careful
measurements taken of one plume showed it stretching for 10 miles,
with a 3-mile width.


      The hazardous effects of the plume are twofold. Joye said the
oil itself can prove toxic to fish swimming in the sea, while vast
amounts of oxygen are also being sucked from the water by microbes
that eat oil. Dispersants used to fight the oil are also food for
the microbes, speeding up the oxygen depletion.
     

 "So, first you have oily water that may be toxic to certain
organisms and also the oxygen issue, so there are two problems
here," said Joye, who's working with the scientists who discovered
the plumes in a recent boat expedition. 


"This can interrupt the
food chain at the lowest level, and will trickle up and certainly
impact organisms higher. Whales, dolphins and tuna all depend on
lower depths to survive."


      Conservationists in Florida said oil could wreak havoc in the
Keys or the environmentally fragile Everglades.
      

"Obviously this is a fear that we had about where the oil might
go next," said John Adornato, regional director for the National
Parks Conservation Association.


      Oil has been spewing since the rig Deepwater Horizon exploded
April 20, killing 11 people and sinking two days later. The
government shortly afterward estimated the spill at 210,000 gallons
- or 5,000 barrels - a day, a figure that has since been questioned
by some scientists who fear it could be far more. BP executives
have stood by the estimate while acknowledging there's no way to
know for sure.


      News of the tube's success was met with tempered enthusiasm by
the leader of a coastal parish in Lousiana that includes
environmentally sensitive marshes and islands.
      

"It's definitely good news," Plaquemines Parish President
Billy Nungesser said after a BP vice president called to brief him.
     

 "It will be better news when they get it stopped," he said,
noting the underwater oil plumes. "We have a large mess out
there."
     

Gallery

BP says its Gulf oil spill costs now $450 million

Political patience wanes as Gulf oil spill grows

Oil company engineers on Sunday finally
succeeded in keeping some of the oil gushing from a blown well out
of the Gulf of Mexico, hooking up a mile-long tube to funnel the
crude into a tanker ship after more than three weeks of failures.


BP: Latest fix for blown Gulf oil well is working

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