Massive Pensacola Beach cleanup effort proves futile – Oil buried under inches of sand

[Barrett808]

Despite intensive efforts by more than 1,100 workers and heavy equipment to clean thick tar from Pensacola Beach overnight Wednesday, massive sheets of oil remained buried in the sand.

An 8-mile stretch of Pensacola Beach that was covered with gooey oil Wednesday appeared to be clean when the sun came up Thursday. But researchers from the University of South Florida and news reporters discovered that oil is buried from about 1 inch to 8 inches deep.

Massive Pensacola Beach cleanup effort proves futile – Oil buried under inches of sand

[RKP5637]

1. No surprises to me. I grew up where tankers used to purge their tanks and

there was always oil on the beach as kids, not the thickness of the gulf, of course, but it was there and went way down into the sand.

[Barrett808]

11. Where was that?

Sounds pretty grim!

[RKP5637]

12. Delaware River decades ago. NJ or Delaware made them finally stop it...

[Barrett808]

13. Glad to hear they were forced to stop... n/t

[aquart]

2. Now what?

[izquierdista]

4. Garbage

Yard waste, actually. That stuff that Florida prohibits from landfills. Take all the pine straw, wood chips, shredded newspaper, old cardboard, grass clippings and mulch that you can find and dump it on the beach. That takes care of soaking up the oil.

Step 2: Once it has soaked up the oil, rake it above the high tide line and let it decompose. Properly cared for, that huge compost pile could metabolize all the oil in a few months.

Step 3: When the compost is well decayed, start on some landscaping and beautification projects. Big projects -- there will be LOTS of compost.

[BeFree]

8. Exactly

Hair booms, tree clippings, paper plates

Put it out a low tide and pick it up after high tide.

It is the only thing that can work. Last chance.

We're scrude.

[aquart]

14. That's ... hopeful. Thank you.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

10. Miniature drilling rigs?

:shrug:

[white cloud]

3. You web site- Can't read for all the black

out of here.

[Barrett808]

5. I've heard that more than once

Would increasing the font size help? I'm kind of committed to the black background...

[cwydro]

6. Massive, my hind end.

They should have had skimmers and pumper boats and a thousand times the cleanup crews OUT ON THE WATER, before it reached the beaches.

(Hind end used instead of a word I would normally use, so as to respect the new nice DU)

[Karmadillo]

7. +1

nt

[cwydro]

9. k and r