Florida in Peril

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June 02, 2010

Florida expects Gulf oil to hit Panhandle in 'a day or two'

Posted: 04:05 PM

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CNN Wire Staff

Mats of weathered oil and tar balls from the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster could hit the western Florida Panhandle "in a day or two," Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said Wednesday.

Sheen from the leading edge of the spill was spotted just short of 10 miles from Florida shores Tuesday night, and "thousands of tar balls" were in the water with it, Crist told reporters Wednesday morning.

The latest order means 37 percent of the Gulf is now closed to fishing because the spill. It is the third day in a row that NOAA has extended those restrictions on federal waters.

The order moved the closures eastward from the Alabama state line to just south of Navarre, Florida, east of Pensacola. And it closes off a larger portion of the deep southern Gulf, extending that zone to the edge of the Dry Tortugas off southwestern Florida.

BP's immediate goal was to finish severing the damaged pipe later Wednesday. The risky "cut and cap" operation then calls for engineers to place a custom fit cap over the well stub.

The plan is for the cuts to leave a nice, almost-polished surface, said Bernard Philippe, general manager of Cutting Underwater Tech USA Inc. Precision is key in order for the cap to fit snugly and stop the oil, he said.

"It is fraught with difficulty," Philippe said. "This doesn't happen every day of the week, as you know. We have to plot our way through this and not make it any worse than it is."

The breached well has spewed hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico every day since late April after an explosion on a leased oil rig.

BP officials have said the cut-and-cap procedure carries the risk that the flow of crude could temporarily increase by up to 20 percent once the cut to the damaged riser is made. The company had hoped to have the well capped by Thursday.

Meanwhile, rust-colored oil that fouled Louisiana's ecologically sensitive marshes washed ashore on barrier islands off Alabama and Mississippi on Tuesday.

Tar balls and patches of reddish-brown "weathered" oil came ashore on Dauphin Island, Alabama, south of Mobile, and on Mississippi's Petit Bois Island, off Pascagoula, authorities reported.

More than a dozen miles offshore, researchers from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab reported seeing more rust-colored swaths of oil spattering the surface of the Gulf. They ranged from the size of half-dollar coins to 30 or 40 feet long, said John Dindo, the laboratory's associate director.

Changing wind direction now threatens Florida as well.

Meteorologists said that a high pressure system will change wind patterns that will favor an eastern progression of the massive spill along the northern Gulf, moving the oil toward the Florida Panhandle and the state's west coast.

Weathered oil and tar balls could hit the western Panhandle "in a day or two," said Florida Gov. Charlie Crist.

Sheen from the leading edge of the spill was spotted just short of 10 miles from Florida shores Tuesday night, and "thousands of tar balls" were in the water with it, Crist told reporters Wednesday morning.

"The goal is to remove that oil from near-shore waters and prevent and minimize any potential impacts on our state," he said.

On the busy Memorial Day weekend, Floridians were thankful their state had been spared. But by the end of June, the oil could reach the crowded beaches in Tampa, Clearwater and Sarasota.

With the help of $25 million from BP, Florida has been running ads trying to emphasize that its beaches and resorts have stayed open and oil-free. Crist said some of those ads will be re-edited if necessary.

"Obviously, you have to have truth in advertising," he said. "So we want to make sure that if it does come on our shores, that we redirect the message so that it is appropriate, that it is accurate and discusses where it is -- and maybe more importantly, where it is not."

Coastal residents are also worried about the start of the hurricane season. A strong storm could drive more oil ashore.

"We don't want to scare anybody, but we need to be realistic about it," said Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser. "If a storm does top out levees, it will probably bring oil with it."

CNN's David Mattingly, Tracy Sabo, Patrick Oppmann, Scott Bronstein and Aaron Cooper contributed to this report.