Louis Skrmetta, the operations manager of Ship Island Excursions in Gulfport, Mississippi, says the oil spill could lead to him filing for bankruptcy.
(Updated at 9:26 a.m.)
BP hiring fishing boats to help
The Louisiana Department of Environmental Protection posted this notice:
"BP is looking to contract with vessels for hire (shrimp boats, oyster boats, etc.) to deploy boom in the Gulf of Mexico. The response contractors for this program are already collecting information on vessels. Specifically, they need the name, owner, dimensions, characteristics (including length, draft, horsepower, etc) and other pertinent information you can provide. Direction and training will be provided and determined by area response plans based on the highest priority areas on down.
"As soon as you have gathered the relevant information on your vessel, please email that information to the managing contractor Vince Mitchell at vince.mitchell@lamor.com or 425-745-8017. As well, please copy BP's coordinator Grant Johnson at grant.johnson@bp.com."
(Updated at 9:19 p.m.)
Floridians: What now?
For many residents and businesses along Florida's Panhandle, the oil spill has been met with uncertainty, CNN affiliate WALA reports.
The question for many Floridians bracing for the oil spill to head their way isn't why, or how, but simply, what to do now?
"I guess one thing about hurricanes is you know what you can do," Santa Rosa County Chamber of Commerce President Meg Peltier told WALA. "You go to the store, you shop, you buy all your goodies and you get ready. People want to get ready for this, but they don't know what to do," Peltier said.
Buddy Rogers, who operates a beach business, told WALA that "The phones have just about stopped ringing, and those that are calling, they're cancelling charters." Rogers said, "I've offered the boat [to authorities] in any way I can, pull booms, whatever they think we can do to help. Right now, all I can do is cut all my spending, save what little bit I can."
Gulf Coast residents worried
Mississippi Gulf Coast residents see their way of life imperiled as the oil slick sloths toward the shoreline.
Fisherman Harold Strong told WLOX, "We'll be out of business, basically, pretty much devastated. I see no recovery. If you lose two to three years, I can see absolutely no way to come back from it."
Marc Douroux Jr., who fishes for a pasttime rather than livelihood, said the oil spill is sure to change marine life.
"All the livestock is going to be killed, birds are going to die, crabs are going to die, fish are going to die, there's not going to be nothing to fish for no more," he told WLOX.
[Updated at 7:04 p.m.]
Tour boat captain says oil spill worse than Katrina
CNN All Platform Journalist Sarah Hoye and photojournalist Mark Biello are currently in Gulfport, Mississippi. They spent the morning with local tour boat captains, whose livelihoods – ferrying tourists around the barrier islands – are threatened by the approaching oil spill.
Louis Skrmetta is the operations manager of Ship Island Excursions, a family-owned business since 1926. He told CNN that the oil coming to shore is worse than Hurricane Katrina.
"At least with Katrina we had clean water and something to eat," he said. "I'd rather lose my house again than go through this."
With his three boats docked, Skrmetta says he is considering filing for bankruptcy if he cannot operate tours this summer, his busiest time of year.
[Updated at 6:42 p.m.]
Crude oil-eating microbes
An Indiana company that specializes in removing toxic waste may hold the holy grail of oil spill cleanups: A crude oil-eating microbe.
Steve Kennedy, president of Bioremediation Inc., told CNN affiliate WSBT his business partner in Florida is working to get the company a shot at the oil slick.
“Ours would be a simple way," Kennedy told WSBT. "It would be spraying [the product] down and letting the microbes consume it off. That is how it works.”
Kennedy told WSBT: “Us as humans, we consume steak and pizzas. Our microbes consume hydrocarbons, and crude oil is a hydrocarbon."
Tourism in southwest Florida
While the oil spill Friday was more fright than bite for southwest Florida, that didn't stop tourism officials in the region from fretting.
Tamara Pigott, director of the Lee Co. Visitor and Convention Bureau, told CNN affiliate WINK, "We don't need any bad publicity to scare off our European visitors, who come here in the summer typically."
Hotel manager Ken Carpenter told WINK, "Business is not good already, and to have this kind of mess would really hurt us, heading into the summer months. We are just holding steady with what we did last year, and we don't need bad publicity!"
iReporter Frank Underwood, who lives in Waveland, Mississippi, spotted these crews in nearby Bay St. Louis on Friday setting out protective booms along a bridge.
[Updated at 5:37 p.m.]
A worried chef in Florida
As Florida's Gulf Coast restaurateurs anxiously watch developments related to the oil spill, one chef in Lantana, Florida, said the disaster will cause a spike in seafood prices in the area.
Geno Lepre, chef at Riggins Crabhouse in Lantana, told WPTV, "The price [of some seafood dishes] is going through the roof. Going through the roof...which is bad for our customers and for us."
Blue crabs will especially be hit hard, Lepre told WPTV.
"Where's all the oil at? On top of the water," Lepre said. "And what are you gonna do when you scoop them up and they're full of oil?"
[Updated at 4:29 p.m.]
UAB researchers: Oil slick endangers terrapins
University of Alabama-Birmingham researchers have decided not to release a group of Alabama diamondback terrapins in the Gulf this weekend due to the oil spill, CNN affiliate WBMA reports.
"If you get an oil slick in there - [the terrapins] live in the salt marsh, that's going to coat the salt marshes," Dr. Thane Wibbels, a UAB biologist told WBMA. "And these things feed off crab and snails, and anything they eat is going to be covered in oil. The immediate impact is they are going to be eating oil laden food. It's going to be bad for their health and possibly result in mortality."
A team of researchers is heading to the Gulf, where the mature male terrapin population is "teetering," Webbels said.
[Updated 3:33 p.m.]
Fishermen say BP ignores their offer to help
Commercial fishermen in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, say BP is failing to use their expertise to protect coastal waterways from oil damage, CNN affiliate WWLT-TV reports.
More than 200 of the parish’s 330 fishing operations have offered their boats, docks and other aid.
“People around here, they know the marsh. This is what they do here every day,” fisherman Kevin Heier told WWLT-TV. “They know how to get from one place to another using the safest route with the weather condition. Why waste your time with people who don’t know the area trying to do the work, while we can get you there and back without a problem?
“We have all these boats available. People will be out of work. The fishing industry, I’m sure, is going to go to hell. We just don’t understand why they’re going to get outside contractors to do the work.”
[Updated at 1:57 p.m.]
WDSU-TV: New Orleans residents can smell oil
After New Orleans residents said they could smell oil in the air, the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals and Department of Environmental Quality said they asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to monitor air quality continuously, CNN affiliate WDSU-TV reports.
Knockout punch for fisherman?
His business has survived cataclysmic natural disasters, but commercial fisherman Rene Cross of Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, says the impending man-made disaster would do him in.
“That would put us out of business,” Cross told CNN affiliate WDSU-TV. “And it's so hard to have come as far as we've come back, to get beat down again.”
[Posted at 1:29 p.m.]
WPLG-TV: The tarpon fish threatened
Among the wildlife that could be affected by the oil spill is the tarpon fish, CNN affiliate WPLG-TV reports. The tarpon, the icon of Florida's $10 billion fishing industry, grows up to 10 feet long and can live for 80 years. Before it swims into Florida's waters, the tarpon grows up in the Gulf of Mexico.
"The entire path of which they are operating is under assault, if you will," said Gerald Ault, a marine biologist who studies tarpon migration at the University of Miami's Rosensteil School. "The timing, really, for that animal probably couldn't be any worse because this is right in the middle of peak spawning period."
Ault has detailed charts that map the location of the oil rig explosion off the coast of Louisiana and its slick growing larger than West Virginia. The projected path of the oil, if it is carried east around the Florida peninsula, mirrors the tarpons' migratory pattern, Ault said.
"It's going to seriously impact or have an impact on Florida fisheries both in the Gulf and the southeastern U.S.," Ault said.
iReporter: BP's floating booms won't work
The floating booms that BP is setting out to corral the Gulf oil spill won’t work, says CNN iReporter James Amerson of Pensacola, Florida.
“BP purchased millions of feet” of boom, he said. “It’s $30 a foot and it’s 20 inches deep. The maker of the boom actually says this will not be effective in high seas. The weather report this morning was we’re having our first coastal flood warning of the season.
“All the effort of the boom being put in place – I know they have to do something – is going to be useless,” he said.
Amerson said he is not taking any measures to protect his waterfront home, but has volunteered to help clean wildlife with Emeral Coast Keepers.
“It’s hard not to burst into tears knowing that it’s all about to be gone,” he said.
– From CNN iReport producer Christina Zdanowicz
WDSU-TV: Impact on marine traffic
The U.S. Coast Guard said the Mississippi River’s Southwest Pass near New Orleans, Louisiana, remains open to deep draft vessels despite the current oil spill, and is free of any restrictions to marine traffic, CNN affiliate WDSU-TV reports.
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You all think this is bad right now? Just wait.......Go look at the Atlantic and the currents and the first Hurricane of the season is going to not only make this worse but make it catastrophic. I have written the White House several days ago and there is no warning to the company or the government on how important it is to have this cleaned up by the first Hurricane. Everyone is sitting on their hands or hoping for a miracle. If our government would actually put as many resources as they do in a fence along mexico, wars in the middle east. We might not have such horrible events as all the deaths in Katrina and now what will be the animal and marine life deaths in the oil spill. This is a pathetic work of art we call a government. Hire those Fishermen and get some people working the first Hurricane i predict is right around the corner............
I too have noticed that "Drill Baby Drill" Sarah has been very quiet this week hasn't she? Yes, I do understand that our country is not quite ready for just shutting the well off on oil, as we can't afford to totally switch over to solar and wind power, and we also can't continue to be under the thumb of the Middle East or Hugo Chavez either. It is a lose lose situation until we use our own "American ingenuity" that we used to be so famous for to create a better world and make things ourselves. Amazingly we have major unemployment and we haven't taken the opportunity to switch our economy over to renewable resources, and perhaps that would have paid us back tenfold in the years to come. I can't wait to see what this spill will end up costing us with all things considered including the job loss for our fisherman, and trying to get our ecological system back up to something even resembling the way it once was.
I lived in Destin FL, Pensacola FL and Navarre Beach FL for 35 straight years.
I am in shock watching what is about to happen to my dear friends who own business and homes along that coast. This entire area survives because of tourism and it's Military Bases.
This oil disaster will effect everything from marine life breeding grounds, baitfish, smaller fish and bigger fish, shrimp, crab, etc....
This oil will kill these treasures of nature in may different ways. Birds will drown because the oil their feathers will make them sink. Fish will eat other fish that have been contaminated because they swam through oil and then they will die, or not be able to reproduce. The bottom dwellers will be poisoned by sinking dispersed oil and burnt off oil, or by eating contamined fish that are on the bottom. Everything will be deeply effected.
Who really wants to go spend a vacation where the water smells, the beaches are soaked with oil and tar balls wash upon the beach daily.
The hotels, restaurants, charter boats, commercial boats, shops and every other thing these areas offer are in very serious trouble. Real estate prices will drop through the floor, people will lose their homes and businesses.
Sure, the sugar white beaches in the Florida panhandle can be cleaned over time, but the eco system will take decades to get back to normal.
In the meantime, the residents of these areas and their busnesses are lost.
Now the experts tell us that this mess will spread via the gulf stream over the coming weeks down the coast of Florida, across the Keys and up the Atlantic Coast. Well, that means one thing. Everyone there is in store for the same thing.
This is NOT just a disaster for Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. It is a disaster for all Americans.
Everyone in this entire Nation needs to set politics aside and start raising total hell with their elected officials everywhere. This country needs to bring the Oil Companies, fishing fleets, Government resources and anything else it takes to stop this damn oil NOW before it's too late.
If we can go to the Moon and Mars, we should be able to stop an oil leak under the Gulf Of Mexico!
As far as future off shore drilling. Well, I'm not going to get into politics as I have asked everyone else not to. I can only say that this event has taught us all one very clear fact. If we are going to drill baby, drill, we damn sure need to have numerous, reduntant safety messures on ALL of these rigs that are fool proof so something like this never, never happens again.
Now please, Monday morning, start making those calls.
Funny noone mentions the "coincidence" of this happening less than a month after obama announces expanded offshore drilling and the night before Earth Day.. this rig was state of the art ,i know an engineer that worked on it and he still cant explain how it failed, they over inspected this rig to ensure everything worked properly because of the size of the find, they didnt want have to stop drilling for any reason. also AP reported that there was an explosion reported by the rig 3 hours before the fire started. yet noone is talking about it.
anyone who doesn't think this will impact our fresh water system, is not seeing the whole picture.
our beautiful wildlife, and every human on this planet will now be ingesting oil in their water, if this spill is not taken care of NOW.
There are some things that can be done to try to minimize the damage of this oil spill on the sand and land. My company has developed and produces a new eco friendly oil absorbant made from citrus vs the older silica type absorbant. The product has been approved by the envoirmental department of the Tennessee Valley Authority, one of the largest power utility companies in the world and is owned by the US GOVERNMENt, as ecologically friendly and contains no toxic ingrediants. The by products are a citrus odor, absorbs 300% of it's weight in oil or water but is especially effective on oil.
One of our customers, who helped clean up a toxic spill is in Dalphine Island with his equipment, which is newer technology to spread this absorbant then dredge the absorbant and oil up. Discharging the remains in large containers, then later extracting the oil from the citrus absorbant. The reamining absorbant can be burned as a fuel in a fossil fuel plant or incenerated without health issues.
We can mass produce this material IF some governmental officals will listen to their own agencies within the government, like TVA, or Georgia Power. The product is made just north of Atlanta and we have huge bulk tankers with side discharge blowers to spread the eco friendly absorbant. Mike Whitacher is in Gulf Shores with his dreggers and absorbant trying to get someone to listen and test this method before it is to late. Presently not much is being done, if this is done before the oil hits land the absorbant will minimize the damage.
The Oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is very saddening. Ship Island, the beautiful narrow barrier island off the coast of Gulfport MS which my son and I visited last summer was a small sliver of paradise for us. We had a blast, the boat ride was great and we made a few fun friends on the way. Now we will only have memories of the warm clear water, tons of huge hermit crabs, small fish everywhere, and dolphins frolicking close to the beach. I even have a funny story about a gigantic, very territorial blue crab which I'll never forget. One of those critters attached to my leg and chased me out of the water
I was screaming and my son couldn’t stop laughing. He is autistic and it was the most beautiful day for both of us to be carefree, play and explore. My son still talks about the hermit crab that had babies which crawled out of the shell on my arm. We took so much care to make sure all were back in the shell before we put them and their “momma” back into the water. We felt hope for sea creatures to return and replenish the waters closer to the coast because it looks so dead there. We planned to go back to the island after my husband's return from his deployment with the military to share our terrific adventure with him this summer. His sister lives in Pass Christian and lost her house during Katrina but they rebuilt.
It is so sad that it maybe all gone or so messed up forever that it may never be the same. It will become one huge stinking sewer in which thousands of marine animals and birds will cruelly die. It was such a heavenly place. Tears…..
I am taking a vacation in June to visit my hometown Navarre, FL. I guess instead of that vacation, I need to do my part and help "fix" this situation. I want to help out every way I can... I'm just lost of words on how to feel about this... my emotions are traumatized. So many things are about to affect my beautiful Gulf.
Michael B – I live in Pensacola. Every morning I wake up thinking this is a nightmare. Then I remember that it's real. I say please come home and at least give a proper farewell to this beautiful blessing before it's gone. Go for a walk on the beach and say a prayer.
Drilling close to shore is better. If divers could reach the well head, it would have been repaired already. To drill off the continental shelf in over a mile of water, is insanity. Obama knows little about oil extraction technology, or he wouldn't even propose a continuance of this nonsense. They will lose their energy bill, cause the drilling off the contintental shelf part of that bill will no longer be approved. So much for community organizers, becoming presdients. Nice experiment. Let's not try it again folks.. please..!! How about you pick from expereienced statesmen for our leaders. These beginners are really annoying me.
everyone I see talking about paying the cost-no one can afford this–and it is not possible to–"clean this up" so to spea...k it will effect us all for yrs, to come-decades–I hope within the speculation of " the cost " is the lost revenue of trillions in property tax revenues from all the beachfront abandoned houses that this will cause-the highest taxed properties will be worth less than the tax bill-how much can a county tax a oil front home or buisness and if the gulf stream drags it around 1000's of miles of coastline–who will pay the parking meter at the beaches?-who will move right out of these area's??–those who can afford to would be my guess-mostly people who retired or fell in love with these "Paradise areas" this does not even begin to cover a spectrum that will take 20 years to evaluate...
Also how many of these rigs in the world have this "fail safe" valve? and honestly-what man made thing does anyone know of that lasts for any amount of time 10 feet deep in salt water let alone 1 mile-–TIMEX?????!!!???...failsafe??????.....get real!!
unless oilwell failsafe valves are somehow covered by the great pyramid's forces I do not see any man made valve lasting even 200 years under salt water-and honestly who has time tested these thing's??= I guess like many other things it is an ongoing "test"
I am a Canadian who just returned from a vacation in Varadero Beach Cuba and while I was there people were swimming in the ocean and coming out covered in oil, so it has already reached land. Despite U.S. relations with Cuba this point should be acknowledged in the broader concern of the environment.
While I am not a scientist, when I had an oil spill in the garage, I used kitty litter...
store ars continue alone
I would like to see a large obselete ship possibly an old military ship welded up and sealed with several air tight compartments fitted with several shut off valves sunk over the well head with a large hole cut in the bottom of the ship and a large sealing ring that would conform to the uneven bottom of the ocean the ship would sit over the hole with the large cut in its bottom and would fillup with the oil and the shut off valves could be fitted with some type of piping to funnel the leaking oil to a ship or some type of receiving device this would possibly slow or stop the flow of oil down. this is just an idea, I am aware that there are very high pressures that deep in the ocean. the ship would fillup the compartments with oil and could be accessed by opening the valves to collect the oil. Also another idea would be to lower a large magnet to stick to the pipe depending on what the pipe is made of such as copper it would not stick or steel it would stick to, a magnet with a large gasket material that when close would mate up to an irregular surface.
The only way to hit BP is to stop buying their product. This is sheer neglect on behalf of ever corrupt person involved and that includes the US government.