Pensacola Beach will likely soon be covered in oil from the BP oil spill. Image from Wikimedia Commons.
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. Oil was spotted a few miles off the Florida coast, and it is believed that within a few days, there will be an oil slick on the Western Panhandle of the Sunshine State. Pensacola, Fla., and especially Pensacola Beach will be hard hit. Tourism will take a hit, too; the white sand beaches there are an incredibly popular vacation spot.
Pensacola Beach soon to be covered
According to MSNBC, an oil sheen was seen just seven miles from the coast near Pensacola, Fla. Summer is almost here, and this will mean a drastic turn for the tourism season on the Gulf Coast of Florida. It already is costing a drastic amount of quick cash to clean up. Hundreds of miles of coastline are already soaking up oil along the coasts of Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi — and now Florida. The fallout for BP is immense, and it isn’t known what the cleanup is going to cost the oil company or taxpayers.
‘Top Kill’ and cap efforts not effective yet
Several methods of trying to cap the leaking oil have been tried, and there has not been a great deal of success. The last attempt was a “top kill” method, where mud was pumped into the leaking pipes to plug the leak. Currently, a “cut and cap” effort is underway, where remote controlled robots would slice a section of pipe away and install a cap over the end. That effort has hit a snag because a saw blade became stuck in the pipe, according to CNN. Efforts will continue, but there’s no report on how long it will take to plug the leaking pipes.
Huge losses for BP
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. The full extent of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill won’t be known for some time.
