My New Blog

The product, or "tarballs"  we’re looking at now is highly weathered when it hits the beach, and it is supposedly one of the easiest forms to collect and pick up.  There are crews on the beach to clean them up and the number of the crews is expected to be increased.

From the air above the Gulf of Mexico, it was evident that the oil coming in was more than isolated patches. Sheen was floating in what vaguely resembled schools of huge fish. Clumps of coppery oil appeared occasionally along with the sheen.

The waters of the Destin Pass will be closed to traffic Wednesday at 7 p.m. Coast Guard booms would be deployed across the pass and at the Destin bridge.  The time was chosen because that’s when the tide is high and water from the gulf is moving into the pass.  The pass will be opened again at low tide when water is flowing in the other direction, then closed again when the tides change.

Destin charter boat association officials were scrambling late Wednesday to notify local boat captains hired to operate oil skimmers for British Petroleum of the impending closure.  They did not want the captains to find themselves stuck inside Destin Harbor and unable to work and make money.  The Coast Guard booms to be installed when the pass is closed will supplement chevron booming the county has already done.

It is hoped a massive boom laid across the pass entrance will help sweep spill residue to collection points installed by the county.  Booms will also be put in at the Destin bridge and across two channels on the north end of the pass. These will serve as a last resort to prevent oil from getting into Choctawhatchee Bay.

Poulin, of the USCG personally issued the authority to implement all measures the county has requested to use in preventing oil from entering the pass.  “We’ve had generous and expedited cooperation,” Mr. Villani, of Okaloosa County, said.  The Okaloosa County Commission had decided Monday to circumvent the authority of Poulin and the Unified Command set up to oversee spill response by voting to allow Villani to act without the command’s permission if that became necessary.  It doesn’t appear now Villani will have to take independent action.  The county received approval Wednesday to install air and slip curtains, put in foam-filled pipe booms and wall in the pass entrance with barges.  It will still likely be several days before either of the curtains or the pipe booms can be installed.  Villani said the county’s plan to line six barges up across the entrance to the pass when it is closed “is probably a few days out.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also announced Wednesday that it had extended the area of federal waters closed to fishing to Panama City Beach.