Spill closing in on Pensacola Beach

[nashville_brook]

http://www.pnj.com/article/20100601/NEWS01/100601020/Spill-closing-in-on-Pensacola-Beach

(more at link)


PENSACOLA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A Florida beach might get hit with oil from the Deepwater Horizon accident for the first time Wednesday as sheen likely caused by the accident was reported less than 10 miles off Pensacola Beach. A charter boat captain reported the oil Tuesday afternoon and state and local environmental officials confirmed that it was about 9.5 miles offshore.

Winds are forecast to blow from the south and west, pushing the outer edges of massive slick from the spill closer to western Panhandle beaches. Emergency crews began Tuesday scouring the beaches for oil and shoring up miles of boom. Escambia County will use it to block oil from reaching inland waterways, but plans to leave beaches unprotected because they are too difficult to protect and easier to clean up.

(snip)

“It’s inevitable that we will see it on the beaches,” said Keith Wilkins, Escambia’s deputy chief of neighborhood and community services.





(snip)

An estimated 20 million to 40 million gallons of oil has spewed into the Gulf, eclipsing the 11 million that leaked from the Exxon Valdez disaster. The rig was being operated for petroleum giant BP, which has tried unsuccessfully for six week to stanch the oil. The Florida report followed an orange and oily mess washing up on Alabama’s beaches earlier Tuesday. Crews cleaned up the oil that they described as having the consistency of a “tarry mousse,” but health officials closed the beaches to swimming.

Pensacola Beach officials said their request for about $150,000 from BP to buy sifting machines and a tractor to help remove oil from the beach’s famous white sands has lingered unanswered for more than three weeks.

BP has promised it will pay any expenses, but Panhandle officials say the bureaucracy has been slow. Some think the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be running the cleanup operation, not BP.

[chill_wind]

1. Horrible :-(

Pensacola Beach officials said their request for about $150,000 from BP to buy sifting machines and a tractor to help remove oil from the beach’s famous white sands has lingered unanswered for more than three weeks

[nashville_brook]

4. you know, and $150K is just not that much money given the scale of the disaster.

so they're shrugging off the most modest clean-up requests. does not bode well.

[chill_wind]

13. $150 k. FUBAR. n/t

[DCBob]

2. One of the most beautiful beaches in the world.

very very sad.

[dgibby]

3. It's already hit Dauphin Island, Ala.

So sad.

[nashville_brook]

6. saw this at the Pensacola New Journal too: Oil slick triggers Alabama fishing waters closure

http://www.pnj.com/article/20100601/NEWS01/100601019


Oil slick triggers Alabama fishing waters closure
TRAVIS GRIGGS • [e-mail] • JUNE 1, 2010


Floating swaths of “mousse-like” crude oil washed ashore Monday night on a remote barrier island near the Alabama-Mississippi state line, threatening sensitive bird nesting areas and prompting fishing closures.

About two miles of Petit Bois Island, part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore, were contaminated by emulsified oil with a “pudding-like” consistency, according to National Park Service officials at the Unified Command in Mobile.

The contamination was discovered about 9:15 a.m. by a park employee patrolling the island, said park service spokesw oman Adrienne Freeman. Following the discovery of the oil, Alabama fisheries regulators enacted an emergency fishing closure Tuesday to Alabama state waters west of Mobile Bay.

The closure includes Gulf waters within three miles of the Alabama coast and stretches from Dauphin Island west to the Mississippi state line.

The oil washed on to the beach in patches, and in the most heavily contaminated areas, about 65 percent of the beach was covered with a meter-wide “belt” of oil, Freeman said.


(snip - more at link)

[dgibby]

15. Rick Sanchez(CNN) reported on his show today

that 31% of the Gulf is now closed to fishing.

[nashville_brook]

18. damn that's a lot of area.

[Edweird]

5. Of course government should be running this and NOT BP!

[nashville_brook]

19. it really is amazing to see so much argument over this...

it's a version of the "all government is bad" conservabot philosophy, and it's just sad to see it so entrenched here.

[jpak]

20. big gov't is bad when they tell you not to build yer mega beach house on the dunes

but big gov't is gooder when they hand you a big fat FEMA check to rebuild it after the hurricane

and big gov't is gooder gooder when it pays to re-nourish the beach after the hurricane

but big gov't HAS TO DO SOMETHING!!!111 when the earl biddness washes ashore in front of yer mega beach hawse.

yup!

[Catherina]

7. Pensacola?

:cry:

[AsahinaKimi]

8. White Beaches

Will not be white for a long time to come, after all those years ago in Santa Barbara, (1969) people are still, today scraping little tar balls from their shoes, sandals and bare feet.

[Ruby the Liberal]

9. It is only just beginning.

I am so sorry. :cry:

[xchrom]

10. recommend -- and this we are led to believe for fear of criticizing Obama

that this is the best level of competence.

[nashville_brook]

11. oil is going to wash onto FL in waves, hitting many communities simultaneously...

it's going to be a giant oily crusterfluck.

[jpak]

21. yeah - president Nader or Kucinich or McCain would have 'saved the day' weeks ago

yup!

:D

[chill_wind]

12. And..Oil found along Miss., Ala. shorelines; fishing ban widened (MSNBC)

The Coast Guard, for its part, said Tuesday that oil was reported reaching Mississippi and Alabama shorelines. That came after officials widened the region under surveillance to include those states and expanded the no-fishing area to include parts of Florida and Alabama.

Confirmation of the oil came soon after Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen told journalists of the reports.

Red-brown oil was found on Alabama's Dauphin Island on Tuesday, and local officials closed fishing and posted signs warning against swimming as a precaution.


The Mobile Press-Register said one of its reporters had seen a slick in the Mississippi Sound some three to four miles south of Pascagoula, Miss.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said oil had reached Petit Bois Island. The strand of oil was just three-feet-wide but two miles long, he added.

(snip)

Federal officials on Tuesday also expanded the no-fishing area to 75,920 square miles, or 31 percent of all federal waters in the Gulf. That was a five percentage point increase over Monday.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37444105/ns/gulf_oil_spill

[Odin2005]

14. OH NO!!! My great aunt lives there!

:cry:

[LaydeeBug]

16. "...oil from the Deepwater Horizon accident" needs to copy: BP's Negligent Oil Geyser. nt

[nashville_brook]

22. talk about weasel words!

[amborin]

17. K&R

[nashville_brook]

23. this was top of the news on NPR this morning.

[Mari333]

24. tourism, money, in an already hugely depressed area, death of wildlife

god, what a nightmare

[nashville_brook]

25. oil now 7 miles from shore -- PNJ

http://www.pnj.com/article/20100602/NEWS01/6020322/Sheen-7-miles-from-Pensacola-shores?GID=WUt7Zc9ynV6HrU1yoPItelwUIXo6IK6aRUPLXwd4zBo%3D


Several areas of sheen were spotted as close as 7½ miles from Pensacola Pass Tuesday, sending local oil spill response crews scrambling to enact protection measures.

"It's inevitable that we will see it on the beaches," said Keith Wilkins, Escambia County's deputy chief of neighborhood and community services.

[chill_wind]

26. kicking