The Emerald Coast Chapter of Surfrider Foundation has begun “on the ground” efforts to test their local Gulf beach waters in Florida for dispersants being used to ‘clean up the oil’ and oil. They have taken the approach to adapt SF’s Blue Water Task Force Program to specifically address this disaster. They have chosen to test because none of the agencies are testing for dispersants and they are not currently publishing the results of oil testing. The lack of information being shared with the public is a major health risk to both residents and tourists as tar balls wash up on these shores daily.

On Sunday there was a sheen in the waters as far east as Miramar Beach (Walton County) and multiple reports of health concerns, coughing up blood, shortness of breath, skin and eye irritations due to people entering the water. The Suncoast Chapter (St. Pete/Sarasota) and other Florida chapters may also initiate testing if the surface and underwater plumes sync with the loop current and make their way east and south.

As you might imagine due to the severity of this spill, this testing may be needed over an extended period of time. The cost for testing dispersants is about $350/per test and samples have to be shipped to a lab in Washington state. Oil testing is about $80/per sample. Surfrider’s Emerald Coast chapter is directly impacted by the spill and could use help in getting the word out and/or by making a donation to this campaign.

To find out more go to www.SurfriderEmeraldCoast.org and if you wish to contribute you can click on the “Donate” button.

Source: Environmental Law Institute (.pdf)

Last night while heading home from work I heard on the radio that America’s biggest company Exxon Mobil’s 4th quarter profits were down 23% to a measly $6 billion. Before you start feeling too bad for them remember that in 2008 when oil prices rose to $100 barrel, Exxon Mobil became the world’s most profitable corporation with earnings over $45 billion.

What’s amazing to me is that despite these incredible profits, we continue to subsidize these hugely profitable and highly polluting companies.

The graph above makes is pretty clear that part of the transition from carbon-based fossil fuels to renewables will require that we stop subsidizing the most profitable and polluting companies and move that support to renewable energy sector.

Surfrider Foundation joined with 16 other environmental organizations in July 2009 in sending the following letter to US Senators. Congress will again be considering risking the beaches and coastal economy of Florida by allowing new oil drilling close to shore when they return from their summer recess.

On behalf of the millions of members of our organizations, we are writing to oppose any legislation that would allow new oil and gas drilling off our coasts. Specifically, we ask that you remove language in American Clean Energy Leadership Act of 2009 reversing the bipartisan agreement reached in the 2006 Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act (GOMESA). Our energy policy should promote responsible renewable energy, be based on sound science, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Instead, Florida’s coasts are being sold to the highest bidder—the oil industry.

The risks to Florida’s economy are great. Florida is dependent on its $65 billion-a-year tourism industry, which relies in large part on clean coastal waters and beaches for activities like swimming, boating and fishing. The risk of oil pollution — from the drilling process, tankers and leaking or broken pipelines — contaminating Gulf waters and washing ashore is real. The prevalence of hurricanes in this part of the country increases the threat of catastrophic spills. A spill in the eastern Gulf could potentially be carried by currents to coastal beaches, and to the Florida Keys.

Additionally the Eastern Gulf of Mexico houses a remarkable diversity of marine and coastal ecosystems, including coral reefs, mangroves, bays, estuaries, and tidal flats. The Gulf of Mexico is home to an abundance of marine wildlife, both in the shallow and the deep sea: from the surface where bluefin tuna spawn to the coral gardens which serve as nurseries for a variety of fish and other marine life. Increased oil development would threaten many of the habitats and structures that make the eastern Gulf so diverse.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee turned its back on Florida by agreeing to language that would allow drilling within 10 miles of Pensacola, and shrink the current 125-mile-wide buffer elsewhere along Florida’s West Coast to 45 miles. In doing so, the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is undoing an agreement made in 2006 to protect Florida’s Gulf Coast.

The 2006 GOMESA granted long-term protections until 2022 for Florida’s Gulf Coast, in exchange for 8.2 million acres of drilling rights in previously-protected areas. In the absence of a moratorium on offshore drilling or other protections the Senate is setting a dangerous precedent with respect to the management of our oceans and marine ecosystems by going back on its agreement.

The Senate should create energy policy that increases investments in responsible renewable energy development consistent with the protection of wildlife and habitat, and that promotes energy efficiency and conservation, while creating jobs in new clean energy sectors, without putting our oceans and coasts and the economies they support at risk.

In the face of climate change, the continued extraction and burning of offshore oil and gas reserves makes even less sense. Global warming and ocean acidification threaten our ocean ecosystems, including low lying coastal areas, and coral reefs.

We urge you to uphold the commitment made by the Senate in 2006 to protect the treasured resources of Florida’s Gulf Coast, and to continue your efforts to move our nation away from the old and outdated energy policies of the past and toward a bright future of carbon-free energy, that maintains the health of our oceans and planet.