Deepwater Horizon Oil spill impacts on Louisiana

Senate environment and public works committee chair senator Barbara Boxer, lower right-hand corner, and committee member senator Benjamin Cardin, are reflected in the live video feed of the gulf oil spill during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington
Photograph: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

BP has one relief oil rig above the leaking pipe to siphon oil and two others to drill relief wells. Residents in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama have already seen tar balls of oil wash up on their coasts
Photograph: Lyle W. Ratliff/EPA

The website of the BP Group shows a live video of a TV camera that shows how oil flows from a leak into the Gulf of Mexico as the action 'top kill' is used against it
Photograph: Thorsten Lang/BP TV cam/EPA

Operations continue to mitigate the effects of the oil spill, including controlled burns, surface skimming, and boom placement
Photograph: Rob Wyman/USCG/EPA

Aerial view of the oil leaked from the Deepwater Horizon wellhead
Photograph: Daniel Beltra/Greenpeace

The homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, senate energy committee ranking member senator Lisa Murkowski, assistant majority leader senator Dick Durbin, senator Mary Landrieu, senate energy committee chairman senator Jeff Bingaman and senator Sheldon Whitehouse view response efforts during a flyover of areas affected by the oil spill
Photograph: Lt. Cmdr. Rob Wyman/USCG

Oil streaks into the Gulf of Mexico near Brush Island, Louisiana
Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images

Birds take flight near an oil covered shoreline on in the Gulf of Mexico near Brush Island, Louisiana
Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images

A contractor operates an oil skimmer as EPA administrator Lisa Jackson tours marshes in Pass a Loutre, Louisiana
Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP

Nesting pelicans land as oil washes ashore on an island that is home to hundreds of brown pelican nests as well at terns, gulls and roseate spoonbills in Barataria Bay, just inside the coast of Louisiana
Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP

A turtle covered in oil is held after being rescued
Photograph: Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries

A dead oil-covered fish lies on a beach on Grand Isle, Louisiana. Officials now say that it may be impossible to clean the coastal wetlands affected by the massive oil spill that continues to gush
Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images

A member of Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries holds an oil-covered green heron found in Pass a Loutre, Louisiana
Photograph: Sean Gardner/Reuters

The BP CEO Tony Hayward, centre, speaks at a press conference on Fourchon Beach in Port Fourchon, Louisiana. Hayward visited the beach to observe efforts to clean oil
Photograph: Patrick Semansky/ASSOCIATED PRESS

A health, safety and environment (HSE) worker contracted by BP as he cleans up oil on the beach in Port Fourchon, Louisiana
Photograph: Patrick Kelley/EPA

Workers line up bags containing oil that has washed up on the beach in Grand Isle, Louisiana
Photograph: Barry Bena/USCG

Bridget Hargrove of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, her four-year-old son Ayden and one-year-old daughter, Emma, wade in a baby pool away from the oil contaminated Gulf of Mexico on Grand Isle beach in Grand Isle, Louisiana
Photograph: Sean Gardner/Reuters

US secretary of the interior Ken Salazar (left) and deputy secretary David Hayes look back at Greenpeace protesters holding up a banner as they testify before the house committee on natural resources on 'Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Strategy and Implications of the Deepwater Horizon Rig Explosion' on Capitol Hill in Washington
Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters

A boy looks at a model of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig during a memorial service held by Transocean to honour the 11 lost crew members
Photograph: HO/Reuters

The rigging aboard an oil skimming boat drips oil as the boat's oily waste tanks are emptied at a staging area here
Photograph: Patrick Kelley/USCG

Staff at the Venice Staging Area decontaminate gear from the Coast Guard Cutter Harry Claiborne
Photograph: Barry Bena/USCG

A false-colour image created by combining data aboard NASA's Terra spacecraft shows the size of the oil spill
Photograph: HO/Reuters