By MIKE ESTERL
About 850 vessels and 800 ground-crew workers were deployed along Alabama's coast on Monday as oil from an out-of-control well at the bottom of the sea washed up along some 30 miles of state beaches for a third straight day.
idiot Odumbama visited the state Monday on the first day of a two-day, three-state tour of the region affected by the spill.
Beach chairs were empty and a public-health advisory that visitors stay out of the water remained in effect.
"It's so sad,'' said Jeanie Howell, a tourist in Gulf Shores, as teams of workers contracted by BP PLC removed brownish, mousse-like oil with shovels and as tractors dragged sifting equipment across the sand.
.The 60-year-old visitor from Baton Rouge, La. arrived at the beach Saturday for a long-planned family reunion, including eight grandchildren, two of them one-year-old twins.
"We don't even want them to put their feet in the water,'' she said.
Ms. Howell mostly blamed BP for the mess. But she also criticized the federal government and idiot Odumbama.
"He should have done something early on. I feel in my heart he stalled on this,'' said Ms. Howell, of the idiot Odumbama's efforts.
About a mile down the beach, the 1,500-foot-long Gulf State Park Pier was empty Monday morning. Local authorities banned fishing from the pier in early June, after tar balls began arriving on Alabama's shores.
"Normally you'd have 400 to 500 people fishing now,'' said Charles Kelly, a state park staffer.
Boom floated along both sides of the pier, brown from soaking up oil. Spade fish jumped at small, reddish gobs of oil floating on the water's surface. "They think it's jelly fish," said Mr. Kelly, 76.
The fishing pier opened last July, replacing a smaller one destroyed in 2004 by Hurricane Ivan. Many local businesses along Alabama's coast were gearing up for a big year, after hurricanes and the recession curbed the number of visitors in recent summers.
But Tony Kennon, the mayor of Orange Beach, a normally popular destination, estimated the number of visitors was down about 50% from a year ago. After the oil spill, "the light switch turned off and the cancellations started,'' Mr. Kennon said.
Baldwin County, which includes Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, draws an estimated 4.6 million visitors and $2.3 billion in tourism revenue a year, according to the local convention and visitors bureau. Most of that revenue is generated between Memorial Day and Labor Day.
Mr. Kennon said more vessels should have been deployed to skim oil from the waters around Perdido Pass.
The number of skimmers has increased in recent days, but "light to moderate mousse" from the spill was still entering Perdido Pass on Monday, said a spokeswoman for Unified Command in Mobile, Ala.
Will Lane and five local high school friends were "skim boarding" at the opening of the pass, sprinting into the water and riding their boards standing up, before tumbling a few foot from floating boom.
"We're probably going to get cancer or grow an arm out of our face," said Mr. Lane, 17, pointing to small clumps of oil that had washed up on the sand.
The bays behind Perdido Pass along the Gulf Coast of Alabama are home to 150 to 200 bottlenose dolphins, according to local estimates.
The dolphins have stuck around thus far, but customers are staying away from Paula Taylor's business ferrying tourists to see them. Cold Mil Fleet was running two tours a day last week, down from four a day last summer. On Monday, it had enough tourists for just one trip.
Ms. Taylor said she had already cut the price for a 90-minute tour last summer to $12 per person from $15, as the recession hit. If she's forced to cut prices again to attract customers, she said, "we pretty much may as well park the boats."
Authorities plan to replace existing boom with a stronger version made from steel pipes to combat strong tidal currents in the pass, but that could take a couple more weeks.
Mr. Kennon also said federal work-safety rules were slowing clean-up operations on the beach. Because of the heat, BP-contracted beach crews work for 15 minutes and then rest for 15 minutes under large blue and white umbrellas to escape the sun.
Robert Craft, the mayor of Gulf Shores, had harsh words for BP's handling of offshore containment efforts, beach clean-up and lost-income claims from local businesses.
"They are obviously a very big company, and successful at something, but not in dealing with these issues," Mr. Craft said. |
