Yesterday, scientists were voicing their fears that the Gulf oil spill would get into the Loop Current, which flows east, through the Florida Keys, around the tip of Florida and then up the U.S. East Coast before heading into the Atlantic.This morning, Florida news sources are reporting that tar balls have washed up on Key West.
The state is running a lab analysis to see if the eight-inch-in-diameter tar balls have actually come from the Deepwater Horizon spill. Florida officials and scientists are fearful that the slick will suffocate the delicate coral reefs that form the Keys, as well as pollute the mangrove groves and white sand beaches of the Sunshine State.
While Florida officials discuss the possibility of oil in Biscayne Bay, Louisiana scientists have begun to confront the next nightmare scenario — a hurricane in the Gulf. Hurricane season officially begins on June 1. Typically, Colorado State University forecasters predict above-average activity for the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season. Meanwhile researches at Florida State University are attempting to create computer models of what could happen, should a hurricane hit the Gulf. The modeling is hampered by the fact that no one knows where the slick will be in two weeks, coupled with the unknown action of hurricane strength winds on water covered with heavy density oil.
“My ‘oh, no’ thought,” LSU Director of the Wetland Biogeochemistry Institute, and coastal sciences professor Robert Twilley told the New York Times, “is that a hurricane would pick up that oil and move it, along with salt, up into interior regions of the state that I am convinced the oil will not reach otherwise. These systems will recover,” Twilley explained to the NYT. “It’s going to be the length of time that’s uncertain. And the important thing is, what happens in the meantime? What services do the wetlands provide the state of Louisiana? Fisheries, flood control, nutrient removal, habitat for ducks and nesting birds.”
Oil has already fingered 29 miles of Louisiana's shoreline, Gov. Bobby Jindal told The Advocate. Oil has impacted Trinity Island, Whiskey Island, South Pass, Chandeleur Islands, Fourchon Beach, Raccoon Island and Grand Isle.
Jindal also told The Advocate that an oil sheen was reported in Pass a Loutre and there were new, unconfirmed reports of oil on Marsh Island in Iberia Parish.
MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
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