It has been reported that U. S. officials overseeing the response to the 100-day old oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico said Wednesday "things continue to be stable" at the wellhead.

Crews ran three tests on the well on Tuesday to help develop a picture of conditions on the ocean floor, National Incident Commander Thad Allen told reporters at a briefing in New Orleans.

Allen said, "Out at the wellhead, things continue to be stable. So far, we have found no anomalies that we haven't been able to clear up, and it looks like everything's in good shape out there."

He would meet this week with regional leaders in Louisiana to talk about the operation and "some other things that are important to the parish presidents," Allen said.

ABC News reported on Wednesday that efforts to extinguish the fire following the April 20 Deepwater Horizon explosion may have helped sink the oil rig.

The report further noted that interviews and documents obtained by the Center for Public Integrity reveal the decision to fight the blaze with salt water rather than fire-suppressing foam may have overwhelmed the ballasts keeping the rig afloat. ABC also said that may have caused the rig, leased by British oil producer BP, to list and then sink.

Capt. Ronald A. LaBrec, the U. S. Coast Guard's chief spokesman, told the center, "The joint investigation is absolutely looking into that, and whether it contributed to the sinking."

It lacks the expertise to fight a fire aboard an oil rig and did not have ships equipped to combat the blaze nearby, Coast Guard officials told the center. The Coast Guard has yet to determine whether those boats or the rig operator had access to fire-retardant foam, the preferred suppressant for combating an oil-based fire, said ABC.

It has further been reported that the Coast Guard's policy is to coordinate the response to a rig fire, rather than join in the firefighting efforts. However, ABC said the joint Coast Guard-Interior Department investigation produced testimony that the Coast Guard had little success coordinating the response in the Deepwater Horizon disaster that claimed 11 lives and dumped tens of millions of gallons into the gulf before it was capped July 15. (With Inputs from Agencies)