Hurricane fuels US oil gush fears

Forecasters said Tropical Storm Alex was gaining strength as it headed towards Mexico's north-eastern coast and southern Texas and could become a hurricane today.

The National Hurricane Centre in Miami said the centre of the storm was heading for the Texas-Mexico border, away from the oil spill area off Louisiana, with winds of 60mph.

But a report by British scientists said hurricanes in the coming season could create further havoc because of the massive oil spill from the BP deep-water rig in the Gulf.

The storm's heavy rains have already caused flooding and mudslides that left at least four people dead in Central America over the weekend, though Belize and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula appeared largely unscathed. There were no reports of damage to Mexico's resort-studded Caribbean coast.

Once over the warmer waters of the Gulf of Mexico, Alex quickly grew back into a tropical storm and is expected to keep strengthening in coming days.

Warnings were issued of life-threatening floods and mudslides when it hits landfall.

When Alex became the first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, officials immediately worried what effect it could have on efforts to contain the millions of gallons of crude spewing into the north-eastern part of the Gulf.

A cap has been placed over the blown-out undersea well, directing some of the oil to a surface ship where it is being collected or burned. Other ships are drilling two relief wells, projected to be done by August, which are considered the best hope to stop the leak.

The report by scientists said the oil spill was not yet an environmental "catastrophe" – but could potentially become one as the hurricane season got under way.

The thousands of tonnes of oil pouring into the ocean remain largely out at sea, and doing nothing beyond taking steps to protect sensitive habitats may be environmentally – if not politically – the best option, they said.

The scientists said adding chemicals to the sea to disperse the oil or burning it off the surface could have worse impacts than the oil itself.

Martin Preston, an expert in marine pollution from Liverpool University, said of the spill: "Economically the impact has clearly been very large, but environmentally the jury is still out.

"Politicians cannot be seen to be doing nothing, when sometimes doing nothing is the best option.

"The risk of making things worse by acting is quite significant and a rather gung-ho attitude to clean-up can end up causing more damage than if it's been left alone."

The spill was not yet a catastrophe on the same scale as other major leaks which had happened in shallower water or closer to land.

But hurricanes – depending on the path they took across the Gulf – could have an influence on how much oil was pushed onshore in the next few months.

Dr Preston said the peak of the hurricane season would come as BP attempted to secure the relief well in August.

Winds and storm surges driven by hurricanes could either push oil towards land or away from it depending on the path of the storm.

Hurricanes crossing the area of the spill would also force the vessels siphoning off some of the oil to evacuate the area – leaving oil spilling into the open ocean, he said.

Dr Simon Boxall, of the National Oceanography Centre at Southampton University, said fisheries would return to normal in around a year and could even be more productive if fish benefit from a ban on fishing because of contamination fears.

Oyster and clam industries would take a year or two to recover.