Oceans, Waves and Beaches

I spent this past week on the Gulf coast along the upper Florida panhandle (everything west of Panama City) and on the Alabama coast. During my trip, I spoke with various business owners, water enthusiasts, lifeguards, hazmat workers, tourists and our Emerald Coast Surfrider chapter. Many topics were discussed but the one that rises [...]

Total amount released = 4.9 million barrels of oil = 205,800,000 gallons over a period of 87 days
Captured = 800,000 barrels = 33,600,000 gallons = 16.3%
Released to the environment and not recovered = 172,200,000 gallons = 83.7%

Surfrider Foundation’s network performed more than 9,000 water quality tests in the United States last year. I share that figure to establish the fact that we know water testing.
Water quality tests are performed by Surfrider volunteers all over the globe. They do these tests to make sure local coastal waters are safe. You can read [...]

A new poll reports more than two thirds of Floridians want the opportunity to vote on whether to ban net new offshore drilling in State waters.
As more and more oil hits Florida’s beaches this issue is becoming very real.
Check out the Spilltracker wiki where locals are sharing what they are seeing on their local beaches.

When the spill started the Deepwater Horizon was flying the flag of the Marshall Islands.
Why was a rig in US waters flying the flag of the Marshall Islands?
To lessen/skirt US taxes.
If that’s not oil in the wounds… the US government was giving this rig a $225,000 PER DAY tax deduction.
How broken is our [...]

Source

In the seemingly never-ending stream of hard-to-believe strategies for addressing the now 62,000,000 gallons of oil that has spilled BP is now turning to… paper towels.
Sure. Go ahead. Laugh.
Then cry.
The Exxon Valdez was 11,000,000 gallons of oil. The BP spill is coming up on six times the Exxon Valdez.
Those figures have become abstract. We don’t [...]