Has anyone started to draw up plans to protect the west coast of Florida? If they have are those plans being made public?

With the amount of oil that is currently in the Gulf of Mexico it would seem that it is only a matter of time before some of this oil starts to move south and spread along the west coast of Florida. While it may not be possible to prevent any damage at all form occuring; there are large areas that should be relatively easy to protect. The geography of the west coast should help.

There are barrier islands that stretch from Tarpon Spring to south of Fort Myers Beach. These islands when combined with well placed oil booms should be able to protect the inland water ways from most of the oil.

Tampa Bay should be relatively easy to protect if the outer islands and bridges are used to prevent oil flow. While no system is going to be 100 percent effective the amount of damage should be able to be greatly reduced.

The areas behind these islands are relatively large and are valuable breeding areas for many species. It is also the main home for a large number of manatees.

Now if the time to start planning the defense of these valuable area; now is the time to start staging and deploying the series of oil booms. If people wait to draw up these plans I fear that there will not be time to save these valuable areas. Now is the time to talk about the need to close these booms during incoming tides, or other onshore water flows.

If these plans are not being drawn up they should be. If they are not being drawn up you should be getting with to proper public officials and be demanding that they start work now.

I totally agree and have been wondering the same thing. It is amazing to me that no local newspaper or television station has reported on how our own area will be saved.

A few things that I have heard are:
- Local SeaTow owners have refused to sell their booms to BP so they can have them to protect local waters.
- With the exception of a Hurricane, the loop (current) will help protect the west coast as it's over 100 miles off shore and will push all oil away. This is not to say that the keys wont be completely decimated - they will be.

Wes wrote:


If the oil spill does not effect our shorelines as per “officials” have stated, I am sure the dispersants used on the oil will kill to create an equal invisible nightmare just as well! What might these dispersants do to Florida's delicate marine and coastal ecology, especially its coral reefs? Do you own a saltwater aquarium? Try spraying some 409 onto a couple of drops of high-grade machine oil in your live tank. It has great effects in cleaning up the oil droplets but cleans out the tank too. Just a sheen of any oil is killer to plants to marine wildlife, birds and insects alike, not to mention your not so clean boat, too! I really wonder what kind of hide and seek game BP is playing with all of us and, for some, they believe it. BP CEO Tony Hayward, in an interview with Britain’s Sky News,” "Everything we can see at the moment suggests that the overall environmental impact will be very, very modest," hmmm, modest eh? The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Tuesday expanded the no-fishing zone; nearly one-fifth of the Gulf, more than 47,000 square miles, is now off-limits for fishing. Sounds modest to me, how about you? What a crock! Adding to the list of potential casualties of the oil is tourism to our Sunshine State, which depends heavily on vacationers' dollars. No local stations are reporting on squat because they do not wish to scare off anyone from visiting. Remember when “Red Tide” was giving it all to us? Well our local ABC station was reporting only a slight smell to the air and the beaches were clear; meanwhile a trip to the beach was a cough smelling experience. A snowbird snow job. Not so different in call your favorite bait shop and them reporting a false report, just to sell you bait or a newspaper giving the same in bring in tourist dollars. Kind of like an ostridge sticking his head where the sun does not shine and saying, “it’s not so bad.” The plan is we have no real plan. The Governor is going to bring in the National Guard. Hmmm and shoot it?

The oil is in the loop may be most is near the oil well. What ever it is on its way to the Gulf Stream. I hope most will go past Florida. Now that is interesting the oil may end up in the British Isles. So I hope the Queen when she gets off her throne and gets out of the bath room in time to see the oil coming. Gee I wounder how much money she has in BP?

LOL - I bet she has more money in BP than I do.

BP is more American than you know with its stock tied up in the US and British ownership is just another way NOT to pay US taxes. A loop hole to the rich...go figure and the Queen is not allowed ownership in private ownership...

We are talking to a number of people -- largely under the leadership of our friend Captain Travis Palledino -- about preparing for the event of that oil reaching our shores.

In the meantime, we have to realize that as horrible as this is, it's not going to stop offshore drilling in our lifetimes. In the future it will be Chinese and Indian rigs in the gulf, but they'll still be pulling that oil out. Civilization demands it.

We will keep all of you aware of what's going on. We need action. The freaken feds are having committee meetings and in Louisiana they're pulling blue crabs out of sweet crude.

We intend to get Marco Rubio involved if we can. Call his office. He needs our support -- let's get his.

poyssick

I applaud Gary P in his efforts to suggest us for a volunteer group in case this spill reaches our coastlines. Remember that motto, if you were a scout, “Be Prepared?” I was a scout, leader, advisor and at one time a professional Boy Scouter down in the bayous of Thibodaux through Grand Isle Louisiana to East Berlin, Penn. I too started the first civilian Boys Scout Troop in Europe; what today is the Transatlantic Council of the Boy Scouts of America. As a former scouting professional, eagle recipient and OA Vigil, I know what volunteerism is all about. Through volunteers, preparing now for what could be might not be as bad as we will be ready in accordance to what might be needed. If on the other hand, this slick missed us, we could be ready for future catastrophes or may aid in helping our neighbors to the northern Gulf coast states. Here are a few links of interest:


MARCO RUBIO: The campaign is here to assist you in answering the questions you are
Asked. Feel free to email Luis Valdez contact:

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it




BP's Community Information Line at 866.448.5816

Volunteers doing outdoor work with BP are required to undergo a 20-minute health and safety-training course.

BP Contact Numbers
To report oiled wildlife, please call 1-866-557-1401 and leave a message. Messages will be checked hourly.
To report oil spill related damage, please call 1-800-440-0858.
To report oiled shoreline or request volunteer information, please call 1-866-448-5816.
Volunteers are now being recruited on a state-by-state basis and updated on the Deepwater Horizon

If you own a boat, car, or anything else that uses natural gas, oil, or Petroleum, you are the reason BP is drilling. Got news for you, this WILL happen again. It's inevitable. No government regulation or nanny state will stop it. Accidents happen. This one is horrific. Maybe we should have allowed drilling on land.

Housing provided, as well, $26.00 a day per diem paid to off set your meals, along with a promised $13.00 per hour plus overtime in helping clean up the oil spill on the beaches of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. Shamrock Environmental Corp. is looking for temporary workers to help clean up the Gulf Coast oil spill. A spokesperson for Shamrock, an environmental waste-removal company wants people who can help remove crude oil from beaches, rocks and booms. Work hours will vary and one must work 40 hours a week before overtime takes place but at $19.50 per hour, no housing or meal costs that is a lot of hay in your pocket. Shamrock will also provide transportation to the Gulf Coast. Workers will have to go through 40 hours of hazardous waste operator training and must take a drug test in order to qualify for these positions. For more information on careers to temporary work please visit this info page: www.shamrockenviro.com/B/car-opp.asp for an application go here: www.shamrockenviro.com/docs/ShamrockEmpApp.pdf or just Send resume to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Also, according to HARO; They are looking for ideas and solutions to the oil spill problem
in the gulf. Often, the leading source of innovation is
informal, ad hoc groups of interdisciplinary folks coming
together to solve problems. We are openly soliciting ideas for
how we can solve the oil spill problem in the gulf. Do you have
an obvious idea that no one is suggesting or trying? Do you have
a bizarre solution that could be worth a shot, or at least,
spark another idea? Are you an engineer who has a working
solution but has been unable to get anyone to listen? Just an
average person with an idea? We want to hear from you -- we will
be collecting, sorting, and presenting new and fresh ideas. To
be featured on Huffington Post and a newly emerging media
property. Send your idea and a brief bio on yourself to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

This was my Simple idea: All eyes are on the Oil Spill and how it will reflect on our lives, marine life and the beaches to which it could cover. My idea is as simple as one could do and as a simple idea, it most probably would work. I tried the idea in my backyard pool and though it is of a less pressure and depth, using a house running one the bottom of the pool, this was a representation of riser flowing oil. Back in the day, I use to work as a Hardhat diver for Brown & Root in the North Sea. At one point in time, just after the explosion of a rig in the Alpha Field off Norway, we employed a bag to raise wellhead parts and a ship off the bottom. Much, in the same way as my idea on a solution to our oil problem. By placing explosive anchors into the bottom around the broken Riser, a large bag could be placed over the sluing oil and it would fill and collect in the bag. This idea comes from raising sunken ships, in which, a large canvas bag is placed into the ship. Filled with air and the sunken ship floats. Same idea, except the bag is placed over the plume of oil, it fills and as it fills up a relief valve on the top could be connected to a flexible pipe that leads to a ship or other holding device. A temporary fix but it could save our environment until a better idea comes along.

I am Gary Anderson, outdoors writer, angling entrepreneur, contributing editor for www.theonlinefisherman.com/ and freelance photographer. I studied abroad in receiving my first degree at Richmond College, Richmond, Surrey, England and a second from USF in Tampa, Florida. I also studied at RADA, Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and was a card-carrying member of the Actors Guild, performing and directing a number of plays at the Collegiate Theater in London, England. I have lived or visited some 32 countries of the world, served my country in time of need, volunteer with Amigos de las Americas in Central to South America as a Para-medic and worked from the oil business to a freelance outdoors writer, to which I do now. A man of many hats and one who shares all. Disabled but not dead, broke but still happy, I strive to help youth through angling through my program: “Positive Mentoring through Fishing.”

Why are I not seeing stories like this from the Gulf?



Singapore News





NEA says waters at East Coast & Changi beaches now safe
By Lynda Hong | Posted: 04 June 2010 1234 hrs




SINGAPORE : It is now safe to carry out water activities at East Coast Beach and Changi Beach.

They were re-opened to the public for such activities on Friday.

The National Environment Agency (NEA) said its checks on Friday morning revealed that the waters at the two beaches have returned to normal.

However, the public may still come across some small tar balls along the shoreline.

NEA said there is no cause for alarm, as contact with the tar balls will not cause any harm. Anyone who comes into contact with these tar balls can remove them with soap and water.

An estimated 2,500 tonnes of oil were spilled when two vessels - the MT Bunga Kelana 3 and the MV Waily - collided in the waters off Singapore on May 25.

The oil slick then spread to the beaches and the nature wetlands of Chek Jawa.

The containment and clean-up efforts at sea involved a total of 42 craft, six skimmers, one lightweight shallow water boom, a harbour buster, 140 imbiber beads absorbent pads, three vacuum trucks, more than 30 tonnes of dispersant and 3.3 kilometres of containment boom.

More than 170 seaward personnel were also involved. Over 25 officers from the Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) were also deployed at MPA's Emergency Operations Control Centre to co-ordinate the efforts.

- CNA/jy/al


www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singapor...view/1061001/1/.html

inshoreangler wrote:
Good luck with that, when they won't listen to the people there, like the waterman, and their Governor.

inshoreangler wrote:
Damn Gary, how old are you. LOL!