http://www.keysnet.com/2010/05/01/215195/keys-have-all-eyes-on-spreading.html
By KEVIN WADLOW
kwadlow@keynoter.com
Posted – Saturday, May 01, 2010 11:00 AM EDT
Gulf of Mexico waters stained by a major oil spill reached the Louisiana coast Friday, causing Florida Gov. Charlie Crist to declare a state of emergency for six Panhandle counties.
Crist called the scene in the northern Gulf — the oil is already lapping Louisiana’s shore — “horrific.”
In the Florida Keys, residents and officials could only watch with alarm and apprehension as an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil continue to gush into the Gulf.
“We are all very concerned,” said Sean Morton, superintendent of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. “We’re downstream from the spill. Anyone familiar with oceanography and the currents in the Gulf knows that if the spill gets into the Loop Current, it will come down through the Keys and into the Florida Straits.”
Sanctuary staff, local responders with the U.S. Coast Guard and other agencies were coordinating efforts “to see where best to put our resources” if the oil cannot be contained before reaching South Florida.
“A major concern to me is the coral reef ecosystem on the tip of Florida,” Jerry Ault, a University of Miami marine biologist, told the Miami Herald.
Ault, an expert on Keys fish populations and an advisor to the National Marine Sanctuary, said, “Technically it’s the only living coral system in the continental U.S., and it’s a really sensitive system.”
Morton said at this point, officials have no idea whether the thick spill could reach the Keys, or the oil could be dispersed throughout the water column. He noted the Coast Guard hosted a practice drill for an oil-spill response only weeks ago.
“That’s good in terms of getting folks together to know each other’s faces and roles in this kind of situation,” he said. “That helps with the kind of coordination that has take place.”
Paul Johnson, a policy advisor for Reef Relief, was in Alaska in the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil-spill disaster — which could be eclipsed by the Gulf spill in terms of ecological damage.
“People literally were cleaning rocks one at a time,” Johnson said. “That was the extent of spill-response technology then, and not much has changed. That won’t work in the mangroves.”
The Deepwater Horizon oil rig, about 50 miles off Louisiana, sank after an April 20 explosion and fire that apparently killed 11 platform workers.
Hopes that the oil was not leaking from a damaged pipe one mile below the surface were dashed. Not only was the oil leaking, but leaking far worse than believed possible.
Attempts to cap the spill this week failed. President Obama ordered all available Coast Guard units to assist with the spill. A solution could be weeks away.
Engineers were trying to design a massive metal dome and that would essentially catch the oil and funnel it so it could be pumped from the water. But nothing of the necessary scale has ever been attempted in waters so deep.
Attempts to light a controlled fire to burn off surface oil took place Thursday, with initial reports of some success in limited areas.
Gulf Coast commercial fishermen have already filed federal lawsuits against BP, the company leasing the Deepwater rig and legally responsible for the spill.
“This whole zone is a highly populated area with such fish as tuna, dolphin, wahoo, marlin, snapper, grouper and sharks, as well as turtles and birds,” says a report from Roffer’s Ocean Fishing Forecasting Service. “We are currently in the peak spawning season for Atlantic bluefin tuna, a threatened species, that are in this area now.”
Obama recently announced that he intends to approve expanded oil drilling in the Gulf, possibly as close as 30 miles to the sanctuary’s Tortugas Ecological Reserve around the Dry Tortugas. But White House officials said no action would be undertaken to advance the proposal until all aspects of the Deepwater Horizon sinking were analyzed.