Oil Spill in the Gulf

Alabama Beaches Suffering Oil Spill Damage

June 18, 2010

Yahoo News - ... Alabama's beaches have been harmed by all that oil. In addition to the $15 million in tourism funding aimed at convincing visitors that Alabama's beaches are clean, BP also paid $25 million last month to clean up Alabama's beaches. And Gov. Bob Riley told CNN this week that "the state of Alabama is being negatively affected" by the spill and is "going to have to be taken care of, either by BP or someone else." Oil has reached the state's inland waterways along the coast, and tar balls have washed up on Orange Beach.

On Thursday, a local television station essentially called BP executives liars for minimizing the spill's impact on Alabama:

"The crude from the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was washing ashore yesterday while an executive for BP was telling Orange Beach residents that the spill was minimal in Alabama waters."

Trouble is, the state of Alabama was saying the same thing, at the same time. And BP was paying for it. Weird.

Edith Parten, the spokeswoman for Alabama's Tourism Department, called back to say that the spill had, indeed, harmed Alabama's coast, but that the ad stressed non-marine activities for visitors to the state.

"I think the ad suggested that there are so many other things to do here on the coast—the only thing is, you can't get in the water. The beaches are closed to swimming in Gulf Shores and Orange Beach."

That left us to wonder how, exactly, the frolicking children on the beach in the ad got their hair so wet.

The ad also highlights the region's "delicious, fresh, and crazy fun" food, but it pointedly does not mention seafood.

"The seafood they're serving right now is what was captured before the spill and frozen," says Parten.

Predicting the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico Using Simulated Drifters/Particles

Virtual particles were released from the sunken rig site every three hours, assuming continual oil spill from the well. The particles (difters) are shown as black dots, and their trajectries in magenta. Macondo well is designated by the red circle. Sea surface temperature (color contours) was superimposed with the surface current vectors to indicate the surface ocean circulation.