Sunday, June 06, 2010

Gulf Islands National Seashore

Yesterday we took a drive along Gulf Islands National Seashore. We found this bit of debris in the water and fished it out: It's coated in dispersed oil. It's thick and gunky and a nasty piece of business.
Here is a picture of the this piece of whatever coated in this mess.


Here are tar balls




Do you see how much of this crap there is? No matter what anyone says this will not be easy to clean up. This is one section of beach and no news people were here. We told CNN about it and I have yet to see it reported. Even our local news isn't reporting it. They are all hanging out at Casino Beach in Pensacola instead of driving a few miles up the coast to see the real story.
This gunk you see on the beach was floating in the water. You couldn't step anywhere without coming into contact with it.
Of course we saw hazmat guys up the road behind the million dollar homes where uh, no tar balls were reported. We saw no one on this stretch of beach and we came back a few hours later and it was worse.
Plastic buckets and shovels will not clean up this mess. It's huge, it's ridiculous, and I'm beyond furious. We can't begin to imagine how this will be cleaned up. It's just too much.
I have emailed our local news and CNN and am telling everyone I can about what we've seen. The story is not getting out. There was a sea turtle nest marked just a few feet from this and this stuff was scattered so far along this beach. I can't begin to capture it with my crappy camera.
I am not doomsdaying, I am not saying the sky is falling but I am saying that we are being misled about how easy this is going to be to clean up.

5 comments:

Deb said...

I think that it's sickening what's going on down there. I've been watching the news and it just looks horrible. I actually heard that all this oil is going to get into the Gulf Stream and travel up the Eastern Seaboard. The damage is going to be immense.

Andrea said...

Every time I see those guys with their little buckets and shovels and their gloves on, sifting through the sand for little tiny tar balls, I SCREAM at the TV....you've got to be freakin' KIDDING me!!! What they're showing on the news is not even real!!! It's so much bigger than that! It's like trying to do open heart surgery with a butter knife...it ain't gonna work!! It's infuriating!
And second of all, these reporters that stand there and film these dying birds are really pissing me off too! I could never do that! DO SOMETHING!! They'd (the birds) would be in the back of my car or van and I'd drive to the store, get me some Dawn, and start cleaning them myself if I couldn't find the place to take them! Urgh! it's all so maddening!
I'm a raging mess over all this and I don't even live near the coast!

Chocolates4Breakfast (Terri ~ Boog) said...

I am so distressed about this and like Andrea, I don't even live near the coast! I appreciate your blogging about it - We are boycotting BP, a small thing that won't help all the guys and gals down along the coastal waters losing their ability to make a living but I'll not give BP one more cent.

Barb said...

I can't even imagine the effect of all that oil on the ecosystem of the ocean. I just can't figure out what they thought they could do if one of these wells ever blew up. Will this be the end of off shore drilling? I doubt it.

Siobhán said...

It is too heartbreaking for words. I'm doing the bury the head in the sand thing again, not listening to the news, but making sure to not support BP in any way possible.