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ON THE GULF OF MEXICO (AP) — Crews prepared Thursday to lower a 100-ton box they hoped would cut off most of the crude spewing from a blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico, the urgency of their task underscored by oil that started washing up on delicate barrier islands.If the concrete-and-steel box they plan to plunge a mile into the ocean works, it could collect as much as 85 percent of the oil leaking from the ocean floor. The technique has not been tried before at that depth.”Hopefully, it will work better than they expect,” first mate Douglas Peake told The Associated Press aboard the ship that brought the box to the site. The AP is the only news organization with access to the containment effort.It won’t solve the problem altogether. Oil has been leaking since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded April 20, killing 11 workers. Crews are drilling a relief well to take the pressure off the blown-out well at the site, but that could take up to three months.More than 200,000 gallons of oil a day are pouring from the well, creating a massive sheen that has been floating on the Gulf for more than two weeks. As it moved closer to land, crews were frantically laying boom and taking other steps to prevent it from oozing into delicate coastal wetlands.A pinkish, oily substance was lapping at the shore of New Harbor Island, washing into thick marsh grass. It looked like soggy cornflakes, possibly because it was mixed with chemicals that had been sprayed to break it up before it reached land.Offshore, birds dove into the water amid lines of orange oil, but none appeared to be in distress. There were numerous dead jellyfish, some washing up on the shore. It’s nesting time for sea gulls and pelicans, and the danger is they may be taking contaminated food or oil on their feathers to their young.People don’t live on New Harbor, which is in the Chandeleurs, an important chain of barrier islands off Louisiana that are part of a national wildlife refuge and provide a nesting ground for sea birds.Streaks of putrid, orange and rust-colored oil were also creeping well west of the mouth of the Mississippi River in an area that has received less attention.Much of the oil west of the river was still miles out in the Gulf, but there appeared to be little or no effort to contain or clean it up. There were hundreds of dead man-o-war jellyfish there.Out at sea, some boats were using skimmers to suck up oil while others were corralling and setting fire to it to burn it off the surface.The Joe Griffin, the ship carrying the containment box that will be lowered to the seafloor, arrived Thursday morning at the leak site about 50 miles offshore.Workers hope to have the device down at the seabed by Thursday evening, but it will likely be Sunday or Monday before it’s fully operational and they know if it’s working.The crew won’t have to worry about dealing with the wreckage of the Deepwater Horizon, which sank two days after the explosion. It’s not anywhere near where they’re working. It had been operated by BP LPC, which is responsible for the cleanup.- – – -Contact The Daily Reveille’s news staff at [email protected]