More evidence of Gulf oil spill washes ashore

More dirty evidence of the massive oil spill washed ashore along the Gulf Coast for residents who don't need any more reminders of their frustration over failed efforts to stop the crude gushing from a blown-out undersea well.

In Florida, officials on Thursday closed a quarter-mile stretch of Pensacola Beach not far from the Alabama line when thick pools of oil washed up, the first time a beach in the state has been shut because of the spill.

A large patch of oil oozed into Mississippi Sound, the fertile waters between the barrier islands and mainland of a state that has mostly been spared.

The news came as a cap collecting oil from the well was back in place after a deep-sea robot bumped it and engineers concerned about escaping gas removed it for about 10 hours Wednesday.

Even before that latest setback, the government's worst-case estimates suggested the cap and other equipment were capturing less than half of the oil leaking from the seafloor. And in recent days, the "spillcam" video continued to show gas and oil billowing from the well.

BP's pronouncements that it would soon be able to collect more spewing oil have "absolutely no credibility," Jefferson Parish Councilman John Young said. The latest problem shows "they really are not up to the task and we have more bad news than we have good news."

BP officials said they sympathized and planned to do more.

"For BP, our intent is to restore the Gulf the way it was before it happened," BP PLC managing director Bob Dudley, who has taken over the company's spill operations, said in Washington.

In other developments:

• The federal judge who struck down the Obama administration's sixmonth ban on deep-water drilling in the Gulf refused to stay his ruling while the government appeals.
• Environmental groups asked the court to release additional information about U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman's holdings in oil-related stocks.
• Dudley said BP had asked James Lee Witt, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency during the Clinton administration, to review its response to the oil spill and recommend improvements.
• At nearly every important juncture since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20, killing 11 workers, the government's and BP's estimates on the size of the spill, its effect on wildlife and the time frame for containing it have spectacularly missed the mark.