Miami Herald: Employee palm cards for the oil spill

"Florida, under siege and potentially surrounded, is fighting damaging oil spill publicity by urging its frontline to speak with one voice.

Visit Florida, the state's tourism marketing arm has printable ``palm cards'' on its website that businesses can give employees being bombarded with questions about the BP oil disaster.

The cards, which are slightly larger than business cards, offer a script of things hotel and other hospitality employees can tell people who ask about the spill.

``Florida has 825 miles of beautiful beaches. Some areas have been impacted, but most of Florida's beaches are unaffected, and you can count on us to keep providing you accurate, real-time information to make your vacation decisions,'' a card reads.
There's a similar card with answers on how to deal with the media.

The palm cards offer different answers based on whether a business' area has been affected by oil.

``We meant these cards for the frontline tourism industry employees,'' Visit Florida spokeswoman Kathy Torian said Thursday. She said many employees are probably getting questions about the oil spill from consumers, and said the media card is ``in case they get accosted'' by reporters.

Torian said the cards have been updated as the oil spill situation has changed.

``Employees may not have time to keep up on all the latest information about the oil spill,'' she said.

On Thursday, Visit Florida held its first industry-wide webinar to update business owners and others about the organization's plans to promote tourism in the wake of the spill.

Almost 500 people tuned in.

``I think people don't realize what all we're churning out to help out with this situation,'' Torian said. She pointed out the palm cards and a ``share a little sunshine'' campaign on Facebook that encourages people to share pictures of their ``favorite Florida scenes'' so visitors can get real-time views of conditions."


Read more here

BP paying FL workers: Is it enough?

PENSACOLA -- The people of the Florida Panhandle whose livelihoods depend on a Gulf of Mexico sullied by the spewing oil well trickle into a BP claims office, hoping to leave with a $5,000 check to help them get through the month.

The massive oil spill has spooked tourists and left those who live off the Gulf without open waters to fish or boats to sell, rent or fix. In turn, BP has opened 25 claims offices from New Orleans to Key West and, as of Sunday, paid $48 million to about 18,000 people for their economic losses.

The proud, independent coastal workers find it difficult to take money from the company whose disaster has left them grounded, watching and waiting for the worst of the oil to come ashore.

``It's a strange thing,'' said Paul Galusha, who fixes electronics systems on boats. ``I've been self-employed for 12 years. I work hard. . . . I don't ask for [money], but I'm broke.''



Read more here

Oil Spill to hit Florida Beaches Today

An excerpt from The huffington post by Brian Skoloff:

"Scientists say the Gulf oil spill could get into the what's called the Loop Current within a day, eventually carrying oil south along the Florida coast and into the Florida Keys.

Nick Shay, a physical oceanographer at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, said Monday once the oil enters the Loop Current, it likely will end up in the Keys and continue east into the Gulf Stream.

Shay says the oil could affect Florida's beaches, coral reefs, fisheries and ecosystem within a week.

He described the Loop Current as similar to a "conveyor belt," sweeping around the Gulf, through the Keys and right up the East Coast.

Shay says he cannot think of any scenario where the oil doesn't eventually reach the Florida Keys."


Further updates from the Huffington post indicate that an oil sheen was sighted and verified only nine miles off the Florida coast. Officials are have estimated that it will hit the coast sometime today.

FLA officials have asked for $150,000 from BP for beach protection, but the request has gone unanswered for over three weeks.


(Graphic from Protect Florida's Beaches)

Miami Herald on Gulf Oil Spill: Sea life likely disrupted for years

Here is an excerpt from the Miami Herald article Sunday by Rene Schoof:

"It's probably going to be one of the worst disasters we've ever seen," said Paul Montagna, a professor of ecology at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi.

"Instead of creating a typical spill, where the oil goes to the surface and you can scoop it up, this stuff has been distributed throughout the water column, and that means everything, absolutely everything, is being affected," he said.

Further complicating the toxic effects of the oil, the chemical dispersants - used as never before a mile below the surface - have changed the crude in ways that will keep it from breaking down.

The dispersants have modified the oil, keeping it in a form that's "much gooier and much oilier, and that has a lot of us worried, because it means the stuff is not going to degrade very easily," said James H. Cowan Jr., a professor of biological oceanography at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Because of the high pressure deep underwater, it's harder for dispersants to break up the oil, he said.

"A lot of us suspect that we may be dealing with this for decades," Cowan said.

BP's use of the dispersants also is likely to keep the damage hidden.

Larry Crowder, a professor of marine biology at Duke University, said the dispersant, Corexit, had kept much of the oil off the beaches, making it "harder to get 'Film at 11' about the effects." Many species that are killed by the oil in the water will die and sink out of sight.

"That may be the preference of the oil companies: to keep the damage out of sight, out of mind," Crowder said.

Scientists said at the seabed, where the gusher has spewed as much as 37 million gallons of crude since April, the world is like a refrigerator with the door shut: about 40 degrees and dark. Bacteria that degrade oil don't work well in those conditions.

"A lot of the technology that worked pretty well in shallow water we're finding - oops - there are some things we didn't know or think about," said Texas A&M's Montagna. "Obviously, there were no contingency plans."

BP's response plan for a spill in the Gulf didn't anticipate oil staying underwater. It said measurements would be made on the surface to calculate the size of the spill.

Layers of oil reach out in all directions under water, LSU's Cowan said, some deep, where they degrade slowly, and others moving toward the surface. One layer is a few hundred feet down in the water and 300 feet thick, he said.

He and his research team have been out checking the reefs with remotely operated vehicles. Most of the oil they've seen is near the shore, he said, "but we now think we're beginning to see some oil on the reef environment in a little deeper water."

Oil Drilling Poll in the Miami Herald

The UEL passed a resolution in October 2009, before the spill, against Oil Drilling in Florida that says:

A RESOLUTION OF THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT LEAGUE OF GREATER MIAMI, FLORIDA, OPPOSING THE APPROVAL OF OIL DRILLING IN FLORIDA’S WATERS IN AREAS OTHER THAN THOSE ALREADY APPROVED FOR OIL LEASING AND OIL EXPLORATION.

As a result we were quite surprised to see the St. Pete Times/Miami Herald poll results today, in light of the oil spill in Louisiana, that Floridians still cling to the idea of oil drilling off our coast. The poll said that 44% of Floridians do not support a constitutional amendment banning oil drilling off Florida's Coastline.

Offshore Drilling Petition

The UEL had taken a position against offshore drilling off Florida's Coast in a resolution previously published in April 2009.

Kendrick Meek has started a petition demanding A Moratorium on New Offshore Drilling in the Gulf!

Meek said: "The disaster in the Gulf just underscores the need for a moratorium on any new offshore drilling."

If you want to sign the Meek petition to demand that Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio call for a moratorium on expansion of oil drilling in the Gulf, this is the link.

This is the UEL Resolution:

A RESOLUTION OF THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT LEAGUE OF GREATER MIAMI, FLORIDA, OPPOSING THE APPROVAL OF OIL DRILLING IN FLORIDA’S WATERS IN AREAS OTHER THAN THOSE ALREADY APPROVED FOR OIL LEASING AND OIL EXPLORATION.

WHEREAS, Florida’s economy depends on its multi-billion dollar tourism industry, which resulted in millions of visitors coming to Florida annually, allowing tourism to generate billions in taxable sales;and

WHEREAS, tourism accounts for a very significant portion of Florida’s revenue and many of those visitors cite the beaches as an influential factor in their decision to visit Florida; and

WHEREAS, tax revenues generated from Florida’s growing tourism industry are critical to continued funding of essential governmental services, including transportation, schools, and public safety; and

WHEREAS, the pristine beaches of the west coast of Florida require the maximum level of protection, and

WHEREAS, it is our belief that despite technological advances in oil drilling technology, there is no positive assurance that catastrophic damage to our coastline, beaches, plant and fish life could be avoided during normal operating conditions or during storm situations; and

WHEREAS, lifting the moratorium on mineral leasing in the Gulf of Mexico poses a threat to the beaches, waterways, economy of Florida, and national security:

THEREFORE, be it resolved, that the Board of Directors of the Urban Environment League of Greater Miami, oppose the approval of oil drilling in Florida’s waters in areas other than those already approved for oil leasing and oil exploration.

Sarasota Herald-Tribune examination found that the promises made by oil drilling proponents are largely empty

The oil industry makes its case for drilling within a few miles of Florida’s coast by trumpeting a new kind of drilling that is “virtually invisible” on the coast. By Jeremy Wallace

The promise of subsea systems swayed some legislators to support opening Florida’s waters to drilling. But a Herald-Tribune examination found that the promises made by drilling proponents are largely empty:

• One of the subsea systems being touted is almost exclusively used in water that is thousands of feet deeper than Florida’s coastal waters.

• Even the American Petroleum Institute concedes that subsea systems are intended for water more than 5,000 feet deep. Florida’s coastline, within the 10 miles the state controls, runs no deeper than 100 feet.

• Another system being promoted, a floating drilling system that uses large vessels tied to subsea drilling wells instead of fixed drilling platforms, has never been used anywhere in the Gulf of Mexico.

• The only way subsea systems would be viable off Florida’s coast is if large traditional drilling platforms were built nearby or the state allowed refineries and miles of pipelines to shore. History shows that is not likely to happen. A new oil refinery has not been built in the United States since the 1970s.

Absent such changes, drilling off Florida’s coast would likely be done with traditional fixed drilling platforms rising hundreds of feet above the water. These platforms, which dot the Louisiana and Texas coastlines, have for years symbolized Florida’s opposition to drilling.

To read more...hit on the link above. The UEL has taken a position AGAINST further oil drilling. See our resolution.

Exciting Energy Exploration/Oil Drilling Debate Tonight!

Catch it online, live, at Tallahassee.com from 7 to 9 pm.

PANELISTS
Supporters
David Rancourt, Southern Strategy Group
Terry Cunningham, Florida Grassroots Energy Forum
Hank Fishkind, Fishkind & Associates
Opponents
Eric Draper, Audubon Society
Kenneth Welch, Pinellas County commissioner
David McLain, Apalachicola Bay and Riverkeeper

UEL Resolution on Oil Drilling Off Our Coast

A RESOLUTION OF THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT LEAGUE OF GREATER MIAMI, FLORIDA, OPPOSING THE APPROVAL OF OIL DRILLING IN FLORIDA’S WATERS IN AREAS OTHER THAN THOSE ALREADY APPROVED FOR OIL LEASING AND OIL EXPLORATION.

WHEREAS, Florida’s economy depends on its multi-billion dollar tourism industry, which resulted in millions of visitors coming to Florida annually, allowing tourism to generate billions in taxable sales;and

WHEREAS, tourism accounts for a very significant portion of Florida’s revenue and many of those visitors cite the beaches as an influential factor in their decision to visit Florida; and

WHEREAS, tax revenues generated from Florida’s growing tourism industry are critical to continued funding of essential governmental services, including transportation, schools, and public safety; and

WHEREAS, the pristine beaches of the west coast of Florida require the maximum level of protection, and

WHEREAS, it is our belief that despite technological advances in oil drilling technology, there is no positive assurance that catastrophic damage to our coastline, beaches, plant and fish life could be avoided during normal operating conditions or during storm situations; and

WHEREAS, lifting the moratorium on mineral leasing in the Gulf of Mexico poses a threat to the beaches, waterways, economy of Florida, and national security:

THEREFORE, be it resolved, that the Board of Directors of the Urban Environment League of Greater Miami, oppose the approval of oil drilling in Florida’s waters in areas other than those already approved for oil leasing and oil exploration.