As the oil spill smears Florida, a way of life slowly dies

[seafan]

St. Joseph Peninsula State Park on Cape San Blas (AP 2003)



As the oil spill smears Florida, a way of life slowly dies

By Jeff Klinkenberg, Times Staff Writer
June 10, 2010 03:43 PM

CAPE SAN BLAS — My favorite beach in the world is oil-free for the moment.

I worry about all our beaches but especially the one at St. Joseph Peninsula State Park near Apalachicola. It's the wildest you-might-see-anything beach in our state. It features 9 miles of white sand, mammoth sand dunes and graceful seabirds. Beyond the dunes is a forest where animals leap, fly and slither. At night, it's so dark the starlight casts shadows.

I stand on the crunchy white sand, among the innocent ghost crabs and the laughing gulls, and look out at the gulf. It's somewhere out there, the oil. The tar balls have already arrived on the beaches of Pensacola a few hours west of me. Over at Panama City Beach, 30 minutes from here as the pelican flies, worried folks are looking for clumps of tar, the harbinger of the thick oil cakes that have coated the beaches, plants and wildlife of Louisiana.

The idea of something so unnatural and so horrific happening to the astonishing beach at St. Joseph Peninsula State Park is too much to bear. I have seen the tracks of loggerhead turtles, foxes and bobcats on this beach. I have seen, so help me Evan Longoria, an alligator on this beach. I don't know where it came from, probably from a pond in the nearby woods, but I discovered it just a few feet from the surf and at least 5 miles from the nearest paved road. It was devouring a rotting dolphin.

This beach is coastal Florida at its wildest. If it has changed over the last five centuries, I'm guessing it has changed very little.

One time, around dusk, I saw a striped skunk ambling across the beach as if he owned the place, which I guess he did. On a winter morning a few years back I saw a herd of deer grazing near a 40-foot sand dune.

.....

From the comments to this article:

As to the meaning of the crude oil disaster, Jeff hits the nail squarely. For my family and me, the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico are among Earth's most sublime places. We love and fear the Gulf, and we treasure every creature that inhabits its waters, shores, and skies. Now our souls are contorted with misery by the growing sense that it will not be the same in our lifetimes. No amount of money can fix this, no punishment is adequate to the obscenity this represents against nature. ---TDiPod

I have felt from the start of this disaster, that someone I love is being slowly tortured to death, and all I can do is wait for them to send home the body.

I can't even watch the news anymore, it brings such anguish.

And if I hear that bloody,lying, c********r Tony Hayward on my car radio again, I'm putting a round through it. --tt

The "drill baby drill" chestbeaters are clinging to their own sacred mindset. They will not be told that their corporations and government failed them.

They don't realize when you kill the natural environment you might as well burn down your own house. I work with a guy, who today, said to me that BP has done nothing wrong. No matter how much evidence he was presented with he refused to believe corporate ideologies could possibly be criminal.

I think you could probably stick this individual's face in the oil as TarponMarc said and he would still deny the truth.

This article captured the true essence of what is being lost. It's a unique life in and of itself that is irreplaceable. --- empsnewclozh

I remember a particular morning many years ago that stays with me like it was yesterday. It wasn't a good morning for various reasons and I found myself down at Clearwater Beach standing in the crystal water looking down at the glittering sand my toes were buried in. Next I found myself bobbing on my back, cradled in the warm waters like a baby, gazing up at the fluffy white clouds and blue sky. Right then at that moment all was right again with the world. There is no therapy like that. ---empsnewclozh

Klinkenberg's essay continues:

For a lot of us, going to the beach or just the idea of going to the beach is part of the Florida dream. This oil in the gulf, millions of gallons so far, is an assault on that dream. It's an assault on our memories and the beautiful plants and animals that make Florida what it is.

People get married on the beach in Florida. We hold memorials on the beach and scatter ashes in the gulf. The beach is church.

Generations of Floridians have made their living from the beach, selling motel rooms and ice cream cones, catching fish and renting boats. Grandparents have built sand castles with their grandchildren.

You suspect that somewhere in the world, in a skyscraper probably, maybe in Texas or London, a team of lawyers in suits and tasseled loafers are tapping numbers into calculators at this moment in an attempt to limit their corporation's liability for this travesty. President Barack Obama says he would like to kick some oil executives' behinds. After he's through I want to feed the responsible parties to the beach-loving gator at St. Joseph Peninsula State Park.

.....

This captures the essence of despair and mourning that is encompassing us, as the way of life for countless living creatures perishes.




What is so excruciatingly cruel is that it should never have happened.


God, forgive us.


But, we don't deserve it.

[Obamanaut]

1. I can think of no suitable response, so 'rec' will have to do. nt

[HCE SuiGeneris]

2. Brutal.

:(

[ixion]

3. The beaches are one of the things I love most about living in Florida

I am furious beyond words that they're being destroyed in the name of Big Oil. :argh:

[CherokeeDem]

4. Incredible, Heartfelt, and Heartbreaking..

I spent years visiting the Panama City Beach, Destin, Pensacola, and spent many wonderful hours in St. Joseph Penisula State Park at Apalachicola. Days drifting in the flats, collecting shells, fishing, just enjoying the sky, the smell of the gulf waters, the powder white sand beaches. It breaks my heart to think of that oil destroying the birds and marine life, the beaches, the dunes, the vegetation, and the lives and livelihoods of so many people.

I lived in Naples and Miami later, and I can't imagine those areas covered with oil. A poster yesterday asked how low do things need to go before we say enough. How low, indeed.

Seafan, thanks for posting this moving article.

[lib2DaBone]

5. I saw a mother black bear and her cub on a beach in Naples, Fla.

... by Keywayden Island.. just across from Gordon's pass.

A lot of people don't know.. but Black Bears are very good swimmers.. and have been seen by boaters (up to 10 miles out into the open Gulf).

Anyway, this Mama bear and her cub were going from Island to Island one night at low tide. I was sitting on a dock and I could see them in the moonlight, because it was a full moon and very bright..with a clear sky. It lit up the whole bay and beach. It seems the bears were attracted to this one residential area because of the large number of Banana plants and fruit trees. Some of the neighbors were alarmed at first.. but once they saw that the bears only wanted the fruit... they left them alone.

She and the cub stayed there 2 days.. gorging themselves on fruit and sleeping all day in the shade. And then they left... swimming back across the pass toward the Everglades. Never saw them again after that, but I know there are lots more of them around. Also, American Bald Eagles, Ospreys, Sea Otters, Manatees and Dolphins.

Have you ever seen a group of Dolphins play "Catch" with a live fish? It's the darnedest thing.

The Dolphins will surround a good size fish and tire it out. Then, one dolphin will flip the fish to the other dolphin with a little chuckle of glee, just like 2 kids playing catch. The Other Dolphin then flips the fish back to his buddy. I watched a pod of dolphins one night for over an hour ..flipping fish in the air. They do have personalities and they are very playful.

Soon, all these animals will be dead. And Big Oil and the Bankers will continue to prosper and cover their dastardly deeds... with no one to speak for the animals.

[CoffeeCat]

6. There are no words for how sad this is...

...and you captured the tragedy with your words.

It's very sad that the world in which I grew up will not be the same as the world
in which my children grow up in.

We will soon know how much damage has been done--but I don't know if I can
stand to know. I think it will be so much worse than most expect.

[nashville_brook]

k n r

[nashville_brook]

7. dupe, delete

[blindpig]

8. k&r

Kill Capitalism

[seafan]

9. June 11, 2010: Oil confirmed in Florida's inland waterways

Oil slopped into the Perdido Pass and an oil sheen burst into the Pensacola Pass on Thursday, the first confirmed invasion of oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster into Florida's inland waterways. -

June 11, 2010
Miami Herald

BY JENNIFER LEBOVICH AND CAROL ROSENBERG


Oil seeps into Florida waterways

PENSACOLA -- Brown gooey oil slopped into the Perdido Pass and an oil sheen burst into the Pensacola Pass on Thursday, the first confirmed invasion of oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster into Florida's fragile inland waterways.

.....

And in Escambia County the incoming overnight tide left oil intermixed with sargassum grass in the first major intracostal of Florida at Pensacola Pass, said spokeswoman Sonya Daniel.

.....

But the appearance of the goo and sheen in Perdido and Pensacola passes marked the first entry at inland waterways. As the plume wafts east, the next seepage point would be at Destin, also known for its blindingly white beaches, some 40 miles more down the coastline in Okaloosa County.

Escambia's experience lent to a sense of frustration there that state and federal officials weren't working fast enough to get skimmers and boom to neighboring Panhandle coastal counties.

``The bureaucratic process is an abomination,'' said Dino Villani, public safety director for Okaloosa County. ``It's very alarming now with the amount of oil coming into Perdido Pass. It's not the time to be slowed down by a bureaucratic process that is not working.''

In Washington, Allen said he was aware of the frustration. But he said the government has implemented a National Contingency Plan under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 to respond to the spill, a scheme that puts the burden on the business that spills the oil to contract clean up -- with the Coast Guard and the Environmental Protection Agency responsible for supervision.

.....

Robert Reich: Putting BP Under Temporary Receivership: Some Qs and As

[Mojorabbit]

11. This is what I have been hollering about

They knew this would be coming and instead of being proactive they are being reactive. Get the booms into place before it happens. Have a plan ready to move before the oil gets into the sensitive areas dammit.

[wordpix]

20. BP DOES have a plan that MMS approved, to save the Gulf's walruses & sea lions

:crazy:

:cry: I remember coming to west Fla. for the first time in 1972 with a few college friends. We pulled into this empty beach at an unnamed cove---not a park, just a wild place with no one around for miles--- and got out. We waded into the water, which was warm, clear and very shallow for at least 1/2 mile out or more. All these lobster-looking things, I guess people there call them crayfish, started bounding away when we walked in the water. There were lots of them. The men got their jacknives and bound them to long sticks they found on the ground, and waded back in the water, hunting. We ended up with a crayfish for each of us, grilled on an open fire.

That was west Fla. back then---wild, open, bountiful and free. Now it's BP's oil catastrophe :cry: We are all Floridians.

[Spheric]

10. K&R There are no words. /nt

[BeFree]

12. .....

....

[seafan]

13. June 11, 2010: BP oil spill estimates double

(Guardian)



The beach at St. Joseph Peninsula State Park near Apalachicola is one of Florida’s wildest, with 9 miles of sand and huge dunes. (Getty Images)




BP oil spill estimates double

By Helen Pidd
Friday 11 June 2010 10.07 BST

The oil spill off the Gulf of Mexico is even worse than previously thought, with twice as much oil spewing into the ocean than earlier estimations suggested, figures show.
Latest estimates from scientists studying the disaster for the US government suggest 160-380 million litres (42-100 million US gallons) of oil have already entered the Gulf. Most experts believe there is more oil gushing into the sea in an hour than officials originally said was spilling in an entire day.

It is the third – and perhaps not the last – time the Obama administration has had to increase its estimate of how much oil is gushing.

.....

"This is a nightmare that keeps getting worse every week," said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, the biggest grassroots environmental organisation in the US. "We're finding out more and more information about the extent of the damage … Clearly we can't trust BP's estimates of how much oil is coming out."

Trying to clarify what has been a contentious and confusing issue, US officials gave a wide variety of estimates last night.
US Geological Survey director, Marcia McNutt, who is co-ordinating the figures, said as much as 8m litres a day could have been flooding into the Gulf, twice as much as the US government has ever conceded to up to now.

The estimate was for the flow before 3 June when a riser pipe was cut and then a cap placed on it. No estimates were given for the amount of oil gushing from the well after the cut, which BP said would increase the flow by about 20%. Nor are there estimates since a cap was put on the pipe, which already has collected more than 11m litres.

The estimates are incomplete and different teams have come up with different numbers. A new team from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute came in with even higher estimates, ranging from 3.8m litres to 8m litres a day. If the high end is true, that means nearly 400m litres have spilled since 20 April.

.....

There is not a single human on this planet who knows where this hell will take us.

[Lochloosa]

14. I sat on those dunes during Hurricane Fredrick in the '70's.

My uncle and I were going to go surfing. Yeah right. We just sat and watched the surf churning and marveled at the power.

Then we drove to Mexico Beach, which is protected by the Cape and found beautiful 6' curls. What a day.

[mnhtnbb]

15. It just makes you sick. Just sick.

[marew]

16. I grew up on the west coast of Florida.

We weren't rich enough to live on the water but we were only a ten minute walk from the most beautiful beach. I spent so many summers on that beach-- playing in the sand, swimming and doing silly somersaults in the Gulf, watching the dolphins and the horseshoe crabs and the pelicans and seabirds and loving every creature I came into contact with.
I am worried that good fortune I had, the fabulous experience of growing up on the edge of a beautiful body of water, will exist no more and so many future kids will be deprived of the wonder I experienced. I am truly sad.

[MissDeeds]

17. This breaks my heart

The pictures of the wildlife keep me awake at night. Poor innocent animals, with oil coating their bodies, in their eyes, mouths, lungs...
My god, what a tragedy...a crime against nature.

[Cetacea]

18. Recommend

It's all too much...

[JDPriestly]

19. Wow! Your picture brings back my memories of Dauphin Island

in Alabama way back in the 1950s and 1960s when I lived near there. This oil "spill" is so terribly sad.

[Laelth]

21. k&r for reality. n/t

:dem:

-Laelth