http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2010/jun/17/oil-spill-threat-southwest-florida-low-coast-guard/
By Naples Daily News staff report
Originally published 01:29 p.m., June 17, 2010
Updated 01:40 p.m., June 17, 2010
The man leading the U.S. Coast Guard oil spill response on Florida’s west coast said Thursday that the threat to Southwest Florida is low but he’s prepared.
“We are being vigilant, we’re being very vigilant,” said Capt. Timothy Close, commander of the Coast Guard’s St. Petersburg sector, a branch of the Florida Peninsula Command Post set up for the oil spill.
Close spoke and answered questions for more than an hour at a meeting in Fort Myers of the Southwest Florida Regional Planning Council.
A research vessel west of Tampa Bay, two BP ships west of Key West and a C-130 aircraft flying from the St. Petersburg Naval Air Station are keeping daily track of the spill’s track toward Florida, Close said.
So far, only patches of light oil have been spotted in a clockwise eddy that has detached from the Loop Current west of the coast between Tampa and Naples, he said.
When 72-hour projections of the spill bring it within 94 miles of the coast – into a so-called trigger zone – Close sits down with spill responders to discuss what response is needed, if any.
That has happened two or three times, Close said, but the spill has always retreated back over the trigger line without any action being required.
He said the Coast Guard has confirmed one tar ball a man said he had collected from St. Petersburg Beach, but tests determined it was not associated with the Deepwater Horizon gusher.
Should the oil get close enough to threaten Southwest Florida, Close said, he is “confident” resources will be available to respond.
“We’ll have a pretty substantial period of time to start jumping on it,” Close said. “We’re watching every single day.”
Close said he has met with local emergency managers to fine-tune Coast Guard response plans, including locations for booms.
The response plans call for booms to be laid across passes and inlets to keep oil out of mangrove shorelines and marshes, where oil would be hardest to clean up.
“It’s not about protecting the beaches,” Close said.
Thanks to Richard Charter