According to private forecasters at AccuWeather, tendrils from the massive rust-colored oil slick have already entered the powerful Loop Current curling around the Florida Peninsula, which could take it east to the Florida Keys and possibly to Miami and Cuba within eight to 10 days.
British oil giant BP, its reputation on the line in an environmental disaster that could eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, has marked some progress at siphoning some of the oil from the mile/(1.6 km)-deep well to an ocean vessel on the surface.
BP is now siphoning about 3,000 barrels per day of oil, said Tom Strickland, an assistant interior secretary. BP declined to comment on Strickland's new estimate, which is up from about 2,000 barrels (84,000 gallons/318,000 liters) a day that BP said it is capturing.
BP has estimated that 5,000 barrels per day has been gushing out of the well since shortly after an April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that killed 11 workers. US lawmakers and scientists say the figure is unreliable and probably much higher.
The development may still be welcome news for the company and its battered share price. BP shares closed down nearly 2 percent in London on Wednesday, extending recent steep losses.
Florida's tourism gained a respite when tar balls found on Keys beaches were shown not to come from the Gulf of Mexico oil leak, but officials said the $60 billion-a-year industry was already taking a beating from the unchecked month-old spill.
The spill has already dumped oil debris ashore, especially in Louisiana but also on the coasts of Mississippi and Alabama, threatening fisheries and wildlife refuges. The Obama administration is grappling with a widening environmental and economic disaster for which it holds BP responsible.
Wildlife and environmental groups accused BP of holding back information on the real size and impact of the growing slick, and urged President Barack Obama to order a more direct federal government role in the spill response.
To the relief of Florida officials, the Coast Guard said laboratory tests had shown that 50 tar balls found this week on the Lower Keys - a mecca for divers, snorkelers, fishermen and beach goers - were not from the Gulf spill.
Local tourism authorities said damage had already been inflicted by the negative publicity linked to the spill.
"Even if we don't get even a gumball-sized tar ball down here in the next month, there has already been significant perception damage to Florida Keys and Florida tourism," said Andy Newman of the Monroe Tourism Development Council.
"We understand we are not out of the woods yet, that there's more oil out there," he said.
Newman said tar balls were not uncommon in the Florida Keys, as 8,000 commercial vessels pass through the Florida Straits each year and some, defying anti-pollution rules, wash fuel oil from their tanks, which then forms into balls.
But he hoped the news there was no link to the oil spill would be good for this month's Memorial Day weekend.
In prepared testimony for a congressional committee, National Wildlife Federation President Larry Schweiger said BP had failed to disclose results from its tests of chemical dispersants used on the spill. He also said it had tried to withhold video showing the true magnitude of the leak.
"The federal government should immediately take over all environmental monitoring, testing, and public safety protection from BP," he said. "The Gulf of Mexico is a crime scene and the perpetrator cannot be left in charge of assessing the damage." The Washington-based Center for American Progress published comments by its health experts Lesley Russell and Ellen-Marie Whelan saying the huge spill, and the dispersants being used against it, posed "insidious and unknown" human risks.
Noting the federal government had allowed BP to test the undersea use of dispersants, they added, "But are we letting the fox guard the hen house by letting the oil companies determine the safety of these cleaning agents?" In a sign of the widening environmental impact, the United States nearly doubled a no-fishing zone to 19 percent of US waters in the Gulf seen affected by the spill.
The spill has forced Obama to put a hold on plans to expand offshore oil drilling and has raised concerns about planned oil operations in other areas like the Arctic.
