Deepwater Horizon Incident Update #30

Situation Update

• Navarre Beach and Santa Rosa’s entire coastline is open, including the waters for fishing. Two links to live Web cams on Navarre Beach are available at www.santarosa.fl.gov/oilspill.
• Beach goers may see June Grass, a feathery-like alga that is common in warm water during summer months. This common occurrence and not related to the oil spill.
• ·       Some sheens in Florida are oceanographic "slicks" that are often seen during very calm conditions, and not associated with Deepwater, but are naturally occurring sea-surface slicks which consist of plant and animal oil. Slicks are long, straight or curvy features, meters in width, and are glassy, oily, or scummy in appearance.
• ·       According to the NOAA oil plume model, the primary oil plume is 13 miles from Pensacola, 100 miles from Gulf County, and 280 miles from St. Petersburg, with non contiguous sheens and scattered tarballs closer. NOAA trajectories show direct on-shore impacts of scattered tarballs and light sheen through Friday, mainly near Pensacola and East Pass.
• ·       Light to moderate southeast winds at 5-15 knots are expected today, but will turn more to the south Thursday through the weekend. This wind flow may continue to push portions of the oil plume towards the Florida Panhandle in the next 72 hours; however, near-shore ocean currents are forecast to become more westerly this week which will help limit the eastward movement of the oil plume and windows of sheen.
• ·       Weather conditions will be favorable for recovery operations through the weekend with less than a 20 percent chance of rain and seas at around 2 feet.
• ·       County staff and reconnaissance teams continue to monitor beach conditions daily.
• ·       Sporadic reports of tarballs and/or areas of light sheen have been confirmed by reconnaissance teams at Navarre Beach today, June 9, and clean up was requested.
• Today, June 9; 2,850 barrels of oil product/water mix for a cumulative total of 38,590 barrels have been skimmed in the Mobile sector.
• ·       Scattered tarballs were found and cleaned up on Navarre Beach June 4-8.  
• Potential impacts to Florida’s shoreline will be highly weathered, in the form of tar balls, oil sheen, tar mats or mousse – a pudding-like oil/water mixture that could be brown, rust or orange in color. For more information visit www.santarosa.fl.gov/oilspill, under the Fact Sheet and Q & A heading.
• Citizens and volunteers helping with response efforts are asked not to engage in direct contact with oil and oil contaminated products such as tar balls, tar patties, tar mats, and oil sheen. Only qualified members should handle oil products and oil contaminated materials. To report tar or oil on the beach, call the Florida State Warning Point Line at 1-877-272-8335 or # DEP from a cell phone.