louisiana

President Obama is sending three administration officials to Louisiana on Friday to inspect efforts to contain a 120-mile oil slick creeping toward the mouth of the Mississippi River. Officials were scrambling to keep the oil spill, which was about three miles off the Louisiana coast on Thursday night, from damaging sensitive coastal wetlands along the Gulf of Mexico.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson will travel to Louisiana on Friday, the White House said.
The three will conduct an aerial tour of the area and discuss cleanup efforts with federal, state and local officials. They also will meet with officials from oil company BP, which owns the ruptured well where oil continues to leak.
State and federal agencies have strung miles of floating booms -- inflatable or foam barriers -- around the leading edge of the shoreline to contain the spill. Nearly 175,000 feet -- about 33 miles -- of floating booms have been deployed in the region, with about a half-million more feet expected, federal officials said.
A handful of federal agencies have recovered more than 18,000 barrels of an oil-water mix and had deployed nearly 100,000 gallons of dispersant, which breaks up oil, as of Thursday evening, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
What a great loss