Alarm as oil slick nears Louisiana coast

Offshore winds pushed a giant oil slick closer to the Louisiana coast yesterday amid a frenzied effort by authorities to contain what one official said had become a disaster of "national significance."

The White House pledged "all available resources," including the military, to avoid an environmental catastrophe, and the Defence Department said it was studying ways to help as officials revealed that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill was far worse than believed.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency amid forecasts that parts of the oil slick may reach parts of the Louisiana coastline later yesterday.

"It is a question of when, not if, the oil is going to come on shore," Doug Helton, incident operations coordinator for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, said.

The governor's pronouncement listed at least 10 wildlife refuges in Louisiana and Mississippi that are in the direct path of the oil and that are likely to be impacted, adding that "billions of dollars in ongoing coastal restoration projects may be at risk because of this emergency."

A massive deployment of resources and manpower so far "has not slowed the diffusion of the oil, which has reached over a 1,500 square kilometre area and is about 25 kilometres off the Louisiana coast."

NOAA's Helton added that offshore conditions "are going to be increasingly difficult" because high waves will make it harder to contain the oil.

The presence of the giant slick, now said to be growing five times faster than previously thought, off Louisiana's ecologically vulnerable shores dominated a White House press briefing yesterday.

"We will use all available resources, possibly including those at the Department of Defence," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the decision to designate the slick a disaster of "national significance" would allow cleanup equipment and resources from across the United States to be used.

Geoff Morrell, a Pentagon spokesman, said the military was "in the process of determining what if any help we could provide" but added that "we have come to no conclusion yet."

The increased government urgency followed the discovery of a new leak that officials said meant a fivefold increase in the amount of oil, to 5,000 barrels or more than 200,000 gallons a day, pouring out from the debris of a sunken rig..