Fort Myers Beach, Florida

NOAA is preparing daily trajectory maps showing predicted positions of oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

Some local businesses have banded together to have an oil spill vigil in Naples. The group hopes their voices will be heard before their businesses have to suffer from losses due to the spill.

A friend’s husband, just this last weekend, was dolphin fishing 32 miles off of Marathon in the Florida Keys. He said they ran into an huge oil slick. Has anyone else heard of this?

BP has got to shut off the flow somehow, and I think they will. You should be ok in Clearwater. The oil is going to be dispersed a lot more than it was during the Exxon disaster. If they could shut off the flow, it wouldn’t be a big deal. I hope they can shut it off, or this will likely prevent an economic recovery. Everything in this country is tied together, and if they take out the entire gulf coast economy, it will trickle into the rest of the fragile economy.

Immediate On-Shore Conditions

· Tar balls and oil sheen on Gulf waters will begin appearing in Northwest Florida as soon as Tuesday.

· Winds that have kept the sheen plum at sea will turn North at this time bringing the impact to shore.

· Oil “sheen” is different than an oil “slick.” A “sheen” is about one millimeter deep which discolors the water and sand. A “slick” is the deep dark crude oil most damaging to wildlife.

· Not all impact will be linear (West to East). “Breakouts” in the sheen plume may mean that areas to the East will see an impact as soon as or before areas to the West.

Plans to cap the well

· The best option is to effectively close the final five pistons (one has already been closed by BP robots).

· Failing that, BP is currently constructing a “dome” that will be placed over the well area. The dome will include piping that will direct the oil out of Gulf waters.

· Relief wells are currently being “slant drilled” to cap the well below the surface. This is the ultimate “true” fix, though it may take as long as 8 weeks.

Challenges with “dome” solution

· It is expected to take 10 days to 2 weeks

· It is a temporary solution that will still require the drilling of relief wells

· A dome has never been put into place nearly one mile into the ocean under these conditions.

Mitigation efforts underway

· Skimming, dispersants and open-water burns are currently taking place off shore.

· Booms are working offshore to coral oil to facilitate ever more burns, though difficult wave action has limited progress.

· Environmentally sensitive areas are being identified and protected with “booming.”

· Burning and costal dispersants are not planning on being done inshore.

The “booming” process

· Each County is being asked to identify environmentally sensitive areas in their Area Contingency Plan. The hope is to have all such areas “boomed” within the next 48 hours.

· Today, 13,000 feet of boom was put into place

· Booming does not stop oil – it merely diverts it at the surface.

· Currents and rough waves significantly reduce the effectiveness of booming.

· Booming cannot be done on the Gulf front beaches – only inshore.

· Currently the booms out in the ocean are failing.

· Openings to bays and estuaries will be given top priority.

· Diversion booms have failed at the Pensacola Pass and catchment booms are being installed. The same is likely for the Destin Pass, though there are hopes of leveraging the bridge structures for better results.

Impact to Beaches

· Local beaches will be stained by the oil sheen and will see tar balls

· Staining can be “solved” with raking and disking

· Tar balls mostly need to be cleared by hand. BP is paying for tar ball pickup, though additional volunteer efforts are needed.

· If “tar mats” reach shore, they must be identified before they collect sediment and sink or are covered by more sand.

Florida beaches probably won’t see to much affect from it as a whole. If you look at the satellite view of it it is still such a very small area. The news media has really made to be much bigger than it really is. Your talking thousands of miles of ocean out there. It can only spread out so far before it really starts to get really thin sparse and unnoticeable.