VENICE, La. — An oil spill that threatened to eclipse even the
Exxon Valdez disaster spread out of control with a faint sheen
washing ashore along the Gulf Coast Thursday night as fishermen
rushed to scoop up shrimp and crews spread floating barriers
around marshes. The spill was bigger than imagined — five times
more than first estimated — and closer. Faint fingers of oily
sheen were reaching the Mississippi River delta, lapping the
Louisiana shoreline in long, thin lines. "It is of grave
concern," David Kennedy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, told The Associated Press. "I am frightened.
This is a very, very big thing. And the efforts that are going
to be required to do anything about it, especially if it
continues on, are just mind-boggling." The oil slick could
become the nation's worst environmental disaster in decades,
threatening hundreds of species of fish, birds and other
wildlife along the Gulf Coast, one of the world's richest
seafood grounds, teeming with shrimp, oysters and