

 I live on the gulf coast and started covering the oil spill - jonknee
http://itsabigocean.com/

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jonknee
I was unhappy with the media coverage and decided to put up or shut up. A
group got together and took a trip to Louisiana and Alabama (we're in FL and
no oil has washed up yet). In the places that have oil it's worse than we
imagined, but in the places that don't no one is visiting and the local
economies are being destroyed. It's a tough situation to say the least.

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motters
I imagine that once the leak is fixed the politicians and the media will move
on, leaving the fishing communities high and dry, and facing a marine
ecosystem collapse similar to the aftermath of Exxon Valdez.

BP will probably do some extremely cursory and cosmetic amount of cleanup on a
few beaches and then declare the Gulf of Mexico clean. I expect many of the
compensation schemes promised will not materialize, or fall far short of
expectations. Rather like in the financial sector, the profits will be
privately accrued and the disasters left for the public to deal with.

~~~
jonknee
It's also tourist communities, which are abundant on the gulf coast. They make
most of their money in the same few months that oil is spilling and losing
just one season has a huge impact.

We talked to a souvenir shop owner in Alabama who was on a [still] pristine
beach but was down $50,000 already in the first month of his peak season. All
the toursits thought his beach was oily and stayed away.

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earle
I'm a USCG licesned boat captain and I may suggest you start checking out some
of the professional fishery oceanic graphic services as they have a much more
accurate version of the actual spill as opposed to what you're seeing on the
news

Check out Roffs in particular: www.roffs.com/deepwaterhorizon.html

~~~
earle
I should also add that I'm out of Destin, Florida.

And yes, there are dead dolphin, whales (mainly finback), and turtles floating
around.

~~~
jonknee
If you'd be interested in taking us out, we'd definitely be interested. Boats
are very hard to come by in the area.

~~~
mkramlich
your thread exemplifies how the Internet is awesome :)

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thefool
I just wanted to say, thank you for doing this.

It's something I also wanted to do, but was unable to find a group of friends
that were willing.

~~~
brianbickell
Hell, I live in Oklahoma. We have no beaches, but I still appreciate what he's
doing.

Thanks for the hard work.

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erreon
I'm going to be a bit of an echo. "Thank you for doing this."

I live in San Antonio, Tx so I must admit I sometimes I forget about our
beaches and the Gulf. I've been totally fed up with the crap coverage and the
crazy restrictions they're putting on public beaches along the gulf. It's just
crazy to think how much damage is happening.

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yep_yeppers
The more people covering the spill the better, I'm going down in a few days
and plan on taking a detour into Louisiana and seeing how many pictures I can
take.

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jemfinch
If you live on the gulf coast, would it be more appropriate to say that the
oil spill is covering you?

