BP oil spill nevertheless gushing - Now heading for Pensacola Florida

The BP oil spill has yet to be stopped, and it was reported that an oil slick will soon be covering the coast of Florida. An oil slick was spotted a couple of miles off the Florida coast, and there will soon be oil on the western side of the Florida panhandle. Pensacola, Fla, and especially Pensacola Beach could be hard hit. Tourism is likely to heavily suffer, as the white Pensacola beaches are a popular vacation destination.

Source for this article: Oil heads for Pensacola Beach – BP oil spill still gushing

White sand Pensacola Beach to turn to black

The sheen of an oil plume in the water a couple of miles off Pensacola, FL, was seen recently, as outlined by MSNBC. Summer, and thus the tourist season is beginning soon, which makes for the worst possible timing for the Gulf Coast tourist trade. The spill is already costing a lot of payday advances. The coasts of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and now Florida are already soaking up crude oil. The full cost to BP and to the taxpayers to clean up this mess won’t be known for some time.

Top kill and other attempts have no success yet

A number of different tries to stop the flow of oil have come to naught. The last try was a top kill method, where mud was pumped into the leaking pipes to plug the leak. A method referred to as cut and cap is being tried, where robotic submersible units are used to cut sections off the pipe, and caps put on. According to CNN, that is not meeting with a lot of results. Tries will continue, but it’s not known how long it will take to plug.

BP reeling

On top of being involved one of the biggest environmental disasters in living memory, a BP criminal investigation has begun over the incident. Meanwhile, BP's stock is plummeting. For some time, the full damages done by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico won’t be entirely clear.

Citations

MSNBC

CNN