FORT WALTON BEACH — Florida DEP Secretary Mike Sole’s frank answers to the myriad questions residents had about the oil slick headed this way helped ease a lot of worried minds Tuesday.
Sole’s best news was that it is possible Okaloosa and its neighboring Northwest Florida counties could survive the Deepwater Horizon oil spill with minimal damage.
Sole predicted Northwest Florida will see “a light staining of sand, tar balls and some blotches come up.”
“I don’t expect to see a large quantities, large areas of the beach covered and black,” he said. “But I think we’ll feel some effect.”
However, he prefaced that with a warning that the longer the ruptured oil pipe spews 5,000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana, the more tenuous his optimism will become.
He also said it’s likely that clumps of emulsified oil will begin turning up in the area two or three months from now.
The best hope to stem the gush of oil is a cap that BP will try to place over it either this weekend or early next week, Sole said.
If successful, the amount of oil coming out of the well could be lessened by as much as 75 to 85 percent, he said. If not, it could be two to three months before the flow can be curtailed.
Sole, the head man at Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection and the state’s point man for ensuring that BP PLC makes good on its promise to stave off a catastrophe and clean up what does arrive addressed a crowd that topped 400 people.
The meeting lasted from 4:30 until nearly 8 p.m. at the Okaloosa County School District headquarters.
View Wednesday’s Oil Spill photos and the containment chamber.
View a photo gallery of a crowd of fishermen, citizens and officials at the meeting »
See photos of Destin fishermen preparing for life after the oil spill »
See Tuesday’s photos of the spreading spill and efforts to clean it up »
I’m just upset beyond belief by this disaster. Where can I find an probable assessment of the accurate size of the oil released? The statistics are all over the place. Thanks for your good post.
I get more and more furiated with every bird I see covered in oil. I hope this containment cap works. This is just terrible.
Seeing what this oil is doing to our shores and wildlife is just terrible. The longer this goes on, the less the country will care – just like Katrina. I feel so bad for the people whose entire worlds are turned upside down.