U.S. Gulf demands BP and government do more to halt oil spill

VENICE, Louisiana (Reuters) - U.S. Gulf Coast residents and authorities clamoured on Sunday for BP and the federal government to do more to save their coast from oil pollution after the energy giant failed in a deepwater bid to halt the worst ever U.S. oil spill.

The failure of the so-called "top kill" technique to seal the leaking Gulf of Mexico well unleashed a tide of anger and frustration that poses a major challenge to President Barack Obama, who has called the BP spill a "manmade" calamity. Obama faces criticism that his administration reacted too slowly.

"I'm devastated ... We are dying a slow death, every time that oil takes out a piece of the marsh, a piece of Louisiana is gone forever," said Billy Nungesser, president of Louisiana's Plaquemines parish, one of the parts of the Gulf Coast worst impacted by the 40-day-old spreading spill.

Speaking on CNN, he added his voice to demands by Louisiana lawmakers that BP and the federal government rush into place a plan to create a sand barrier off the Louisiana coast by dredging and building up and joining up outlying sandbanks and islets.

After giving up on Saturday an attempt to pump heavy fluids and blocking materials into the leaking well to "kill" it, BP engineers are now pursuing another option from their undersea toolbox to try to contain the seabed oil gusher.

But BP warns that the new procedure, which will try to fit a containment cap over the leaking well, could take between 4 and 7 days and even then its success is not guaranteed.

A surer solution, a relief well already being drilled, will only be finished in early August.

This means crude oil continues to spew daily into Gulf waters, feeding a huge, fragmented slick that has already polluted fragile wetlands teeming with wildlife and rich fisheries in Louisiana.

"This is probably the biggest environmental disaster we have ever faced in this country," top White House energy adviser Carol Browner told NBC's "Meet the Press."

ISLAND BARRIER PLAN

Calling the failure of the "top kill" attempt devastating, Louisiana Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu called on BP to immediately invest $1 billion (691.4 million pounds) to protect marshes, wetlands and estuaries across the region.

"While we may not be able to plug the leaking well right away, there is nothing that should stop us from getting help to the Gulf Coast immediately," she said in a statement.

She and Louisiana Republican Senator David Vitter urged BP and the federal government to immediately fund and support the plan to use dredging materials to create the offshore island barrier.

"We need to improve and ramp up the coastal marsh protection program," Vitter told CNN.

Facing intense government pressure and public criticism, BP Managing Director Robert Dudley told CNN: "We will redouble our efforts to make sure the oil is kept off the beaches".

He, like the federal authorities, sought to lower expectations over any "quick fix" for the well, saying the success of the next containment effort was "not certain" at the mile (1.6 km) depth at which it was being attempted.

Dudley told NBC's "Meet the Press" that BP would know by the end of the week whether the containment effort worked.

He said he did not think BP CEO Tony Hayward, who has faced heavy criticism, should be forced to resign.

The next BP step would involve undersea robots using diamond-rimmed saws to cut off a pipe over the well to put in place a containment cap that would try to siphon off most of the leaking oil and gas up to a tanker ship on the surface.

President Obama, struggling to deflect a tide of criticism that he has not taken charge enough of the oil spill crisis, has also tried to lower expectations.

OBAMA'S "KATRINA"?

Gulf residents fear the spilt oil could be whipped further inshore by what promises to be the most active Atlantic storm season since 2005, the year of Hurricane Katrina.

That deadly storm proved a political disaster for President George W. Bush, who was accused of complacency in handling it, and Obama is fighting to prevent the Gulf spill from becoming his own "Katrina" ahead of November congressional elections.

Louisianians still recovering from Katrina's devastation were frustrated. "It's been a screw-up from day one. Nothing was at the ready and no one was in a position to respond," said Claude Marquette, a fit-looking 68-year-old retired physician, speaking at Venice Marina as he sat with his wife in his boat.

Hayward had predicted that despite risks, the "top kill" had a 60 to 70 percent chance of success. He said he did not know why it failed to stop the gusher.

The misstep is likely to drive his credibility lower, along with his company's market value, which has dropped by 25 percent since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers, and triggering the spill.

The government estimated last week that 12,000 to 19,000 barrels (504,000 to 798,000 gallons/1.9 million to 3 million litres) a day are leaking from the well, far above BP's figure of 5,000 barrels. At that rate, the government now knows that the Gulf disaster has surpassed the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaskan waters.

Obama on Saturday called the continuing spill "an assault on the people of the Gulf Coast region, their livelihoods, and the natural bounty that belongs to all of us.

"It is as enraging as it is heartbreaking."

(Additional reporting by Ayesha Rascoe and Rachelle Younglai in Washington, Kristen Hays in Houston and Patricia Zengerle in Chicago; Writing by Pascal Fletcher and Mary Milliken; editing by Sandra Maler)