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Old 05-09-2010, 08:52 AM
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An update from Jeff Masters:

Long-range prospects for oil to enter the Loop Current and hit the Keys

Posted by: JeffMasters, 3:21 PM GMT on May 06, 2010
The oil slick from the April 20 explosion and blowout of the offshore oil rig Deepwater Horizon is moving little, thanks to the light winds of 10 knots or less that have affected the northern Gulf of Mexico over the past few days. According to the latest NWS marine forecast, winds will remain light through Saturday, which should result in little transport of the oil slick. The latest trajectory forecast from the NOAA Office of Response and Restoration continues to show that the mouth of the Mississippi River and the Chandeleur Islands will be the only land areas affected by the spill over the next two days.

On Sunday, the winds will begin increasing and shifting to the southeast. The latest run of the GFS model shows that this will be a week-long period of southeast winds, with wind speeds at times reaching 20 - 25 knots. These winds will threaten to bring oil to a large portion of the Louisiana coast, including regions of the central Louisiana coast west of the mouth of the Mississippi River. The Mississippi and Alabama coasts will also be at risk next week, but the risk to the Florida Panhandle is lower.

A major concern with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is the possibility for the oil to move southwards and become entrained into the mighty Gulf of Mexico Loop Current, which would rapidly transport the oil through the Florida Keys, impacting northwest Cuba, South Florida, the western Bahamas, and the U.S. East Coast all the way to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. However, there is no immediate danger of this happening. The latest forecast of Gulf currents from the NOAA HYCOM model (see also this alternative view of the HYCOM ocean current forecast) indicate that the currents will not be favorable for pulling any oil southwards into the Loop Current over the next five days. Oil will have to travel approximately 100 miles to the south-southeast to get entrained into the Loop Current, and we probably would need a 2+ day period of strong winds out of the north for this to happen. The long-range GFS model indicates that the earliest this might happen is 10+ days from now. As summer gets closer, the incidence of cold fronts making it far enough south to bring an extended period of offshore northerly winds to the Gulf of Mexico decreases. I think there is a 40% chance that the next cold front capable of pushing oil into the Loop Current will arrive by the end of June. However, I think it is more likely that the next such front will not arrive until October, when fall comes.

That makes a tropical storm or hurricane as perhaps the most likely weather event to push oil into the Loop Current over the next few months. A tropical storm hitting the Panhandle of Florida would do the trick, by bringing northerly winds over the oil spill location, thanks to the counter-clockwise flow of air around the storm. Looking ahead to June, June tropical storms tend to form in the Gulf of Mexico, and we've been averaging one June storm every two years since 1995. This year, the odds of a June Gulf of Mexico storm are probably a little lower than usual. While Gulf of Mexico sea surface temperatures are near average, wind shear from our lingering El Niño will probably be above average. Since 1995, there have been three June tropical storms in the Gulf of Mexico that have followed a track capable of pushing oil into the Loop Current. These storms were Hurricane Allison of 1995, Tropical Storm Allison of 2001, and Tropical Storm Arlene of 2005. Taking into account all these factors, I'll give a 20% chance that we'll get a June tropical storm capable of transporting oil into the Loop Current."
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/Jef...?entrynum=1475


A USF plume transport model:



The red, warmer waters below the release represents the loop current.

There is a time animated version of the model display at:
http://ocg6.marine.usf.edu/~liu/Drif...atest_roms.htm


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Old 05-10-2010, 08:02 PM
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More on possible outcomes to the Keys and east coast mainland from National Geographic. Hope it doesn't come to this but it might. It really seems to depend on how long oil is allowed to continue to pump into the Gulf and prevailing wind patterns. If this had happened a couple of months ago while strong cold fronts were still passing, the Loop Current may well have transported a lot of crude. With the seasonal easterly winds it may not happen as soon. Of course with tropical systems over the summer, this could change.

"Gulf Oil Spill Could Reach East Coast Beaches
....

"If oil gets swept up by the Loop Current, the crude should take about ten more days to hit the Florida Keys, Roffer said.

Spilled oil can be eaten and digested by animals, chemically altered by sunlight, or broken into different-size droplets by winds and currents—among other "weathering" processes that can change the oil's buoyancy as it travels.

If it's picked up by the Loop Current, the tarlike, smelly oil won't have weathered enough to lose its noxious properties by the time it reaches Florida.

The floating oil could get pulled into inlets and harbors along the peninsula, where it would settle into the mangrove forests that are nurseries for many species of sea life, Roffer pointed out.

"You can't go to every mangrove and clean off every root from the oil," he said.

As oil travels farther north via the Gulf Stream, weathering would cause the crude to sink deeper into the water column, he added, further complicating cleanup. (Related: "Gulf Oil Spill Fight Turns to Chemicals.")"


http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...91_600x450.jpg

Continued at: http://s.ngeo.com/wpf/media-live/pho...66_600x450.jpg
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Old 05-11-2010, 10:58 PM
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Volunteers Needed In The Keys If you live in the Keys, visit there or live in Miami-Dade County or elsewhere and want to help please read on and get involved. If the oil plume makes it to the Keys the resulting damage and die off of mangroves, estuarine species and dependent wildlife and aquatic species could be staggering. Your help is needed!


http://keysspill.com/

"We Need Volunteers!

Florida Keys Oil Spill Response

In an effort to be proactive in protecting our Florida Keys environment, this website has been created to help link all partner projects (US Navy, Marine Sanctuary) with volunteers, including Charter Captains,Divemasters, businesses, organizations and individuals.This website is constantly being updated with the latest news on meetings and events, visit this site often to stay informed.

Things that you might help with include
pre-assessments, boom deployment, beach clean ups, boat work, organizing efforts, local informational meetings, trainings, etc.

Please email "EVERYONE" you know and tell them to sign up at www.keysspill.com, we need volunteers.

If the Gulf Spill enters the "Gulfstream Current Loop," oil could potentially be in the Keys area in as little as 5 days! We want to be prepared and you can help.

(Note: Professional Wildlife Rehabbers are being sought click the link below for a PDF file with more info.)

Professional Wildlife Rehabbers"


There is a lot of information on the website including a calendar. This important course of some important things you need to know in a petroleum cleanup appears there:

"May 11th (Tues) – OSHA Marine Oil Spill Class. This 4 hour course will give you the HazMat training needed to help with some aspects of Oil Spill Post Emergency Response and Clean Up. This course is designed mainly to address Safety and Healthy Awareness for Crude Oil exposures. It is OSHA certified HAZWOPER trianing as specified in 29 CFR1910.120(q)(11). The class is first-come-first-served, has 40 slots, and costs $100. To sign up, contact Cathy Torres at FKCC at (305) 809-3250.West"

There are many useful links and other information at the website, http://keysspill.com/

Your help could make a difference, please get involved.




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Old 05-15-2010, 02:25 PM
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SERT Gator, a powerful visualization tool of threat, weather and response




Located at http://map.floridadisaster.org/gator/


The State Emergency Response Team (SERT) have created this nice webpage integrating oil plume, weather and other data, emergency response by sector, search functions and a good deal more on an interactive map platform. Or, in bureau geek-speak: "Flex Viewer to demonstrate the best practice to develop GeoWeb application by leveraging the power of spatial technologies." Click on the earth icon beneath the title to convert it to a satellite map. It was created to deal with emergencies in general, so hurricanes, floods, droughts, fire, etc., you can check them out here and resources to go with. Lots of interesting features on this!

More at:
http://www.floridadisaster.org/eoc/update/home.asp


and

You can see some of this same stuff yourself on google earth. Just click on this flame icon off New Orleans and a window will pop up with several links. It will show you things like size, proximity and landfall of the oil plume:




and



Actual fairly recent satellite imagery of the plume. This is from May 8, 2010. Note the wispy colored features around the release point and extending west, east and north. That is the oil plume.
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Old 05-16-2010, 04:41 PM
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"Scientist: Oil may be entering Gulf Loop current, could reach Palm Beach County

Oil may be on its way.

New satellite images show oil starting to enter the Gulf Loop current, which would pull it through the Florida Keys, into the Gulf Stream and up to Palm Beach County, according to a scientist tracking the oil spewing into the gulf.

The new images, taken Saturday by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, "clearly [show] that the oil is being pulled into the Loop current," according to a release from Mitch Roffer, an oceanographer who runs Roffer's Ocean Fishing Forecasting Service and has been providing daily updates on the spill's movement.

"We still don't know how long it's going to take to get around to the Keys and then the east coast of Florida - it just remains to be seen," Roffer said Saturday.

That process, which is difficult to predict, would take at least a week, and possibly several, scientists say."

Continued: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/pal...,7727606.story


"ROFFS™ OCEANOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS FOR THE DEEPWATER HORIZON OIL SPILL AREA
UPDATED SATURDAY 15 MAY 2010 (16:00 HRS)
See enclosed PDF analysis as the graphic is enclosed. Higher resolution graphics are
available. We received some dramatic and clear synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (thank you Ben Holt) that clearly shows that the oil is being pulled into the Loop Current. The first two images are from today and the third and fourth one is from May 12, 2010. I have annotated the imagery so you can see the oil. On the image from May 12, one can also see the tendrils of oil that have moved west and southwest. These images confirm again our water mass– sequential image analysis technique that we have been using. See the analyses from earlier this week on other evidence of this. Obviously the oil has moved further into the Loop Current system
than we had seen the last few days using infrared, ocean color and RGB satellite data.
The question now is how fast and how much of this oil will be entrained into the Loop Current.The other critical questions are what is below the slick and what is in the water masses we have been tracking since the original spill? What will we do to stop the impacts of this oil and the other oil moving along the northern Gulf of Mexico."
Continued at: http://www.roffs.com/DeepwaterHorizo...il15May10b.pdf



JPL Imagery via Roffs. Labeling and highlighted areas have been added to aid clarity.


You can see static and animated JPL sat. imagery of the Gulf, oil plume and Loop Current at ROFFS website where the plume appears to merge with the Loop Current at:

http://www.roffs.com/deepwaterhorizon.html


The animated imagery shows what appears to be the entrainment of the oil plume more clearly than the image above.



More Roffs imagery from earlier in the month.
From: http://www.marlinmag.com/news/news/r...000082714.html

Information was not provided regarding quantities and nature of the floating component of the spill that may be transported into the Straits of Florida. What near term impacts that may be experienced in these areas, if any, particularly closer to shore will be controlled in part by these factors and local weather/current conditions. Roffs previously monitored transport of oil spills created by Hurricane Katrina via the Loop Current into the Straits.


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Old 05-17-2010, 08:57 PM
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A NOAA document for - Oil Spills in Coral Reefs: Planning and Response Considerations
http://tinyurl.com/coralreefresponse

This 2001 report summarizes relevant research on coral reefs. It was written for spill response decisionmakers and anyone working in or planning for spill response in coral reef regions.

Oil Spills in Coral Reefs is the first in a series of publications prepared by NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R) to provide response-related information on specific warm-water resources.

* Title Page, Table of Contents, Introduction

* Chapter 1, Coral Reef Ecology Introduces pertinent aspects of the coral ecosystem.

* Chapter 2, Global and Local Impacts Summarizes the environmental impacts on coral from human and natural causes.

* Chapter 3, Oil Toxicity to Corals A current review of the research available on oil toxicity to coral.

* Chapter 4, Response Methods for Coral Reef Areas General guidance for responding to spills in coral reefs and specific considerations for open-water cleanup measures.

* Chapter 5, Coral Reef Restoration Discusses the emerging science of restoration of damaged reefs, and presents data on recovery patterns and rates from a variety of impacts in coral habitats.

* Chapter 6, Coral Case Studies Several case studies that illustrate a range of issues, including the new technologies being used to restore coral reefs.

* Glossary
* Coral Websites A list of websites that provide useful data on reefs.
* Coral Reefs: Spills and Other Threats


AND a response document for mangroves and oil spills at:

http://tinyurl.com/mangroveoilresponse



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Old 05-18-2010, 02:00 PM
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REAL bad news if this is from the spill in the Gulf.


Tar balls retrieved from Fort Zachary State Park in Key West, Fla., is shown Monday, May 17, 2010, in this photo released by the U.S. Coast Guard on Tuesday, May 18, 2010.

"Coast Guard investigates reports that more tar balls found in Florida Keys

KEY WEST
The Coast Guard was checking reports that more tar balls were found in the Florida Keys on Tuesday, a day after 20 of them were found off Key West.

Tar balls were reported on the beach in Big Pine Key at 8 a.m., Smathers Beach in Key West at 8:20 a.m., and on Loggerhead Key in the Dry Tortugas National Park at 9 a.m., according to the Coast Guard.

Twenty tar balls were found off Key West on Monday. They are being tested by the Coast Guard to see if they came from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill or elsewhere.

Tar balls can occur naturally or come from other sources, such as ships.

The Coast Guard said the Keys beaches remain open. Crews are checking the shorelines of Key West and Big Pine Key, and a helicopter is surveying the scene from the air.

University of South Florida scientists are forecasting that oil from the spill off Louisiana could reach Key West by Sunday.

The researchers said Tuesday that the southern arm of the massive spill has entered or is near the so-called loop current, which circulates in the Gulf and takes water south to the Florida Keys and the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream could eventually take the oil up Florida's Atlantic coast.

Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, says aerial surveys show some tendrils of light oil close to or already in the loop current. But most of the oil is dozens of miles away from the current.

Lubchenco says it will take about eight to 10 days after oil enters the current before it begins to reach Florida.

The Coast Guard reported that Monday's tar balls were found along the shore at Fort Zachary Taylor State Park in Key West. Samples of the tar balls — found by park rangers and ranging in size from 3 inches to 8 inches in diameter — will be sent to a Connecticut laboratory for analysis, according to the Coast Guard."

Continued at:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/loc...,2331747.story

and



"Park rangers discovered 20 ''tar balls'' on a Key West shore and spotted oil residue farther west in the Dry Tortugas Tuesday, stirring fear that the first sign of the massive BP oil spill had washed up on a Florida shore.
The Coast Guard urged calm and sent samples of the three- to eight-inch flattened tar balls for lab analysis in Groton, Conn., to determine whether the hazardous waste was from the massive leak in the Gulf of Mexico or perhaps oil remnants from a passing ship.
``There is no proof or reason to believe these tar balls are from the Gulf at this point,'' said Coast Guard Lt.j.g. Anna K. Dixon, adding that analysis of the tar balls' origins would not be complete before day's end.
Still, the discovery stirred fears of a financial fallout -- stoked all the more by a fishing ban in 19 percent of the Gulf of Mexico, plus a grim new tracking map that graphically predicted a black oil slick encircling the Florida peninsula in 10 days.
``While I always hope for the best, this is looking like really out-of-control bad,'' Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson said about fresh research by the University of South Florida College of Marine Science in St. Petersburg.
The team predicted the Deepwater Horizon's slick would reach the Keys by this weekend -- and Miami next week.
In the Keys, however, a midday survey found a second ``oil residue'' sighting at Loggerhead Key in the Dry Tortugas, said Larry Perez, information officer for Everglades National Park.
Loggerhead is home to a well-known lighthouse in the popular if remote tourist destination -- about 70 miles west of Key West and far closer to the Gulf of Mexico.
Perez said a U.S. Coast Guard team was flying to the island to inspect the shoreline. It was not immediately known when the oil residue was spotted, or whether it was the kind of tar balls found at Fort Zachary Taylor.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/1...-over-tar.html "


Roffs identified oil spill plume by the loop current in satellite imagery as far back as 2 weeks ago. That might explain the arrival of tar balls around now.
More at: http://www.marlinmag.com/news/news/r...000082714.html
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Old 05-19-2010, 08:10 AM
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Some good news,

"KEY WEST The Coast Guard announced this morning that that blobs of tar that have washed up on the Florida Keys this week are not related to the Gulf oil spill.


The Coast Guard set to work analyzing blobs of tar that washed up on the Keys on Monday and Tuesday, as evidence mounted that at least some oil from the Gulf spill soon would be in South Florida.

The analysis determined conclusively that the tar balls collected from the Keys beaches do not match the type of oil from the Gulf spill, the agency announced in a press release. The source of those tar blobs is unknown.

"The conclusion that these tar balls are not from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill incident in no way diminishes the need to continue to aggressively identify and clean up tar ball-contaminated areas in the Florida Keys," said Capt. Pat DeQuattro, commanding officer of sector Key West.

Tar balls washed up in Key West, Loggerhead Key in the Dry Tortugas and Big Pine Key, home of the Key Deer National Wildlife Refuge.

Sticky blobs of congealed oil, which range from the size of a coin to the size of a baseball glove, occasionally turn up on beaches, having formed from oil dumped from ships' bilges, leaks from offshore rigs and natural seepage from the ocean floor.

But their sudden appearance in the Keys prompted concern that the tar balls were the leading edge of a wave of oil headed for the state's coasts."

Continued at: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/pal...,5068086.story

More at:
http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse....oc/586/554303/


Back to waiting, hope not much makes it over to the east coast. Time will tell.
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Old 05-19-2010, 02:38 PM
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USCG goes on record, acknowledges oil slick has intersected Loop Current:


"Part of the giant oil spill in the Gulf has entered the Loop Current and is headed for the Florida Keys, a Coast Guard official warned Florida members of Congress on Wednesday morning.

The tar balls found in the Keys this week are unrelated to the spill, said Coast Guard Rear Admiral Paul Zukunft. But he said Floridians should expect to see tar balls from the spill in another week or two. Asked whether there is anything that can be done to stop the spill from coming ashore in South Florida, Zukunft said: “It would take an act of God. That technology does not exist.” He said the government is rounding up more floating boom to try to help protect the shores. But oil slicks can flow under the booms in heavy seas.

Zukunft suggested setting up two lines of booms while trying to skim oil from the surface. The best way to fend off the slick, Zukunft said, is to apply chemical dispersants at the source of the spill. He said dispersants should not be used near the Keys because of its damaging effects on coral reefs.


The admiral appeared before a meeting of the Florida delegation, full of members concerned about the slick’s impact on recreational boating, fishing and tourism. Scientists have warned since Monday that the slick had entered the current, but the Coast Guard had denied it. “The Loop current has intersected with the Southern-most part of that slick,” Zukunft acknowledged on Wednesday.

It will likely be a week or more before the slick arrives at the southern tip of the state, he said. The tar balls already found in the Keys and tested in a lab could not possibly have come from the spill, he said. But he said the slick will show up in the form of tar balls on beaches when it does arrive.The Loop Current carries debris of all kinds from the northern Gulf all the way to the Gulf Stream that runs along the shores of southeast Florida and up the Eastern Seaboard.

Zukunft said it likely will be August before the damaged well in the Gulf is sealed and the spill is stopped.** “We will never recover all that oil, 100 percent, at sea,” he said. “We will experience tar balls.”"
From: http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news..._headed_f.html


** Note: By some estimates that could equate to 8.4 Million barrels or 350 Million gallons of crude released to the ocean, plus or minus 70 Million gallons. HOPEFULLY, some of the efforts to diminish the flow will be significant in the next three months reducing this projection. What oil is released will be fair game for distribution by current forces and wild card factors introduced by tropical weather systems. This later factor could weigh significantly on the distribution, damage caused by and fate of components of the release.



USF model of oil plume relative to the Loop Current and coast of Florida out to May 23, 2010.
From: http://ocg6.marine.usf.edu/~liu/Drif...atest_roms.htm
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Old 05-20-2010, 10:23 AM
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Regarding current conditions in the Florida Keys and Mainland, they're FANTASTIC, warm sunny and the water's great! Canceling reservations based on current conditions would be a mistake, leaving more Florida for those that do go to enjoy.

that said on to news updates ...

"A small portion of oil from the BP spill could reach the Florida Keys within 10 days, although the bulk of the massive slick will remain in the Gulf of Mexico for the immediate future, federal authorities said Wednesday. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said "light to very light sheens" had been picked up by the loop current, which conveys water from the Gulf along the Keys and up the southeast Florida coast.

The possibility of a massive delivery of oil via the loop current has led to meetings among emergency officials in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, as they plan how to protect beaches, wildlife and the tourist industry. But the small amount of oil picked up so far is unlikely to cause much harm to South Florida, authorities said. Much of it will evaporate along the way, and it might get caught up in a clockwise eddy that would prevent it from even leaving the Gulf, according to NOAA.

"That oil is going to move slowly with the loop current, and we actually expect most of that to dissipate or probably degrade or weather before it actually comes close to threatening the South Florida area and the Straits of Florida," said Charlie Henry, scientific support coordinator for the oil spill for NOAA, at a news conference in Robert, La.

The bulk of the oil remains well to the northwest. If the current reached up and caught that oil, the outlook for South Florida would be much worse. But at this point, officials said, the immediate danger to South Florida is minimal. Florida Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Michael Sole said Wednesday that he did not foresee a major environmental impact from the oil.

By the time it reaches South Florida, much of it will have evaporated and what's left of it will have degraded and congealed into less toxic tar balls, he said. "When you look at the length of transport of the oil when it goes through the loop current, the expectation is that mostly it's going to be tar balls, which shouldn't be a significant impact generally," he said. "These are things that can actually be hand-picked up."


COMMENT: Not if they clog up in the prop roots of mangroves or adhere to seagrass at lower tides. Weathering and characteristics of tar balls may differ.


"They are significantly less toxic at that stage," he said. "I don't want to go to the extent of saying they are innocuous. They're not. They actually have an impact. Turtles will try to eat tar balls, which is obviously not a healthy thing for marine turtles. But it would not have a significant impact of the kind currently being experienced in Louisiana." Sole, who was in Washington on Wednesday for a meeting on the Everglades, does not foresee precautionary measures to protect the Everglades. "You can't boom against tar balls," he said. "Tar balls go underneath the boom, around the boom easily. It's really not something that you can take oil-spill precautionary measures."


COMMENT: Not good news about booming off tar balls. If large quantities make it to the Keys, they could well foul mangroves along the Straits side of the Keys and worse be vacuumed into Florida Bay and the abundant estuarine areas there by tides and local winds. Depending on the consistency, softness of tar balls and response to mechanical pressures, they may be more or less of a problem. If they readily break open, less weathered petroleum will be exposed to air and water creating other issues. "

Complete article at: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/pal...,2784720.story


and


"Efforts spring up to protect Florida Keys

KEY WEST -- With the Gulf of Mexico's massive oil spill now in an ocean current that could bring it to Florida's East Coast, 74-year-old Bobby Kieber felt it was time to act.
On Wednesday he went to Florida Keys Community College and plunked down $575 for a class to get him certified on how to do a coastal cleanup.
``I've lived here for 50 years and I make a living off the water,'' said Kieber, who makes his living sailing yachts between the Keys and the Caribbean.
``We're all doing what we can to stop this. When they need me, I'll be ready.''
Kieber was one of about 30 Keys residents who began the three-day Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response course to achieve a technician level -- a standard set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA. There are other ways to contribute as well, and for free, environmentalists say. Volunteers can get trained on the spot and help clean up Sunshine State shorelines. The idea is to clear the shores of ordinary debris that can become hazardous once the oil hits it.

All training emphasizes that volunteers don't touch hazardous waste -- and tar balls are hazardous material -- but instead alert hazmat teams to handle it. ``Preemptively removing artificial debris from the shoreline of the preserve will reduce potential impacts from oil, and it is good for the environment in any event,'' the Nature Conservancy of Florida said in a statement."

"Meantime, the nonprofit Green Living Energy Education has divided up the Keys into a Coast Watch map that offers a grid at www.KeysSpill.com where trained volunteers can pick a portion of beach to clean, plus a coastal cleanup checklist and other critical information. The spill scare has put a spotlight on the grass-roots effort to the protect the Keys, said Dan Robey, a Key Largo author and environmental activist who created the site to mobilize local volunteers. ``People have adopted shores from the Upper Keys down to Key West,'' he said, noting: ``It's taken off way beyond what we've expected.''

About 500 people volunteered Tuesday, the day the tar ball discovery was publicized. In all, he said, 2,000 have volunteered. Hundreds of the volunteers include boat owners with large vessels that could be used to help lay booms or send out skimmers in the event that a slick of oil makes it down to the Keys, he said. But before boat owners can take on such work, they have to receive certification in a hazardous materials course."

Complete article at: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/2...otect-the.html
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