Thursday, June 3, 2010

BP's oil spreads to Alabama and Mississippi


Of course, it will only get worse. There is lots and lots more where that came from, seeing as the hole will probably be spewing oil and gas for at least two more months. Nice.

And if it took that long for oil to reach those places, think of how much is behind it and for how long it will keep washing up, long, long after the hole is plugged or runs out.

Rust-colored oil washed ashore on barrier islands off Alabama and Mississippi on Tuesday, while more patches of crude offshore appeared to be moving toward those states' coasts, authorities reported.

Researchers scrambled to clean up tar balls and puddles of oil from the beaches of Alabama's Dauphin Island, while a strip of oil about two miles long and three feet wide stretched along Petit Bois Island, about five miles away off Mississippi, Gov. Haley Barbour's office reported.

It marked the first time oil has hit Mississippi's shores since the largest oil spill in U.S. history erupted in late April. And while tar balls associated with the Gulf spill had hit Dauphin Island, about 35 miles south of Mobile, in early May, residents said that Tuesday was the first time they had seen oil hitting the beach.

Only part of the island's beaches have been lined with protective booms, with much of those barriers lined up near a protected wildlife area on the west end of the island.

These places are fucked. And BP doesn't care any more than it is legally compelled to.

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