How has the Gulf Oil Disaster Affected You?

[wiley]

How has the Gulf Oil Disaster Affected You?

I know we have several members from the Gulf Region here. Are you seeing oil on your shores? Has it affected your boating and fishing?

Has it changed your views about energy, oil drilling, Corporate America, Corporate UK??

Over on the Southeast Florida Coast we have our alert out in case the loop currents bring the mess over this way.

Thoughts?

[Chisox]

Frankly, Wiley, it hasn't...except what we see about, read about, hear about...and then it has affected us in a VERY BIG way!

This is not about SE FL, not about Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Key Largo and Islamorada, it's about the whole country, including the Grand Banks, where the GS merges into the the current that flows to the North Sea...

Directly? No. Indirectly? A TON!!! :1898_:

[knotreel]

How has the Gulf Oil Disaster Affected You?

I know we have several members from the Gulf Region here. Are you seeing oil on your shores? Has it affected your boating and fishing?

I was fishing, now I am not fishing, Venice LA being my home port.

Has it changed your views about energy, oil drilling, Corporate America, Corporate UK??

My main concern is seeing them get a BOP that works 100%.

There were mistakes make by people on the rig and the fail safe didn't work. Overall the oil companies have a good record in the GOM. I mainly see this as a failure of critical piece piece of equipment, that simple. People will always make mistakes and always, at times, have poor judgment but the fail safe MUST work.

The fed should not have shut down all deep water drilling, they should just put extra inspection people on the rigs, and require more, say once a week, operational checks of the BOP till the BOP malfunction can be researched and fixed. I thought oil production was critical to our national security and interests, has that changed?

If the BOP had worked as they have in the past none of this would have happened, now they are on a which hunt and seem to be forgetting the equipment issue which this really boils down to. I know drilling ban is not a big deal to people outside LA but the economic impact of the ban on top of the impact of the spill is like us having two cat 5 hurricanes instead of one with the second one being done just with a pen.

[Chisox]

Knot,

Understand what you are saying. I do support our government but in the case of this decision, well, I don't. The jobs that will be affected from Alabama to Texas will be probably more than the region can bear. I HOPE it is reconsidered...

[MLW66]

Wiley, my company prohibits "professional" posting on blog sites as company policy, so this is a semi-anonymous personal post. I work for the master US distributor of a very well-known and well-established marine industry company and the oil spill has ground our business to a screeching halt in the Gulf. Our authorized dealers and two-steppers are advising that most major and even minor recreational boat projects are on hold indefinitely, which of course means that most will be canceled. The commercial boats and fishing boats that have signed on to assist the government clean-up effort will bring some short-term gain, but, this will be very short term indeed.

I lived through the Exxon Valdez disaster in AK and saw similar impact in our business then. I fear this will be many times worse. If we see the oil "flumes" picked up in the Gulf current "funnel" and the oil winds up on the East coast of Florida via the Gulf Stream, then we'll really see some ecologic and economic devastation.

My heart goes out to the fishermen especially, both commercial and recreational. My first ten years in the industry was on and around commercial fishing boats in Seattle and AK. As the owner now of a small NW-built Arima, my greatest joy this time of year is fishing for anything that's in season.

Nature has a way of rebounding, but the studies on the species in AK after the Exxon Valdez suggest that the biology of the Gulf will be affected for a human lifetime or two - and possibly forever.

As bad as it may seem on the news, my friends working the spill recovery say it's much, much worse.

[wiley]

Thank you for that insight MLW66!

[Trollnheel]

Something like this was going to eventually happen. As stated earlier, we will all be affected by this one way or the other. Now they say it may not be done spewing until the fall. I've read and talked to many people who are cancelling their vacations. SAD DAYS ahead

[Chisox]

So, in theory, what do we do, given the possibilities that unforeseen circumstances can occur that, in reality, can't be planned for, yet the occurance of those circumstances can have catastrophic effects the virtually the entire world?

I'm sitting here at my desk, looking at my computer, the keyboard, the mouse, the printer, the phone, the digital camera, EVEN the mouse pad...all made from oil. The USB cords, the surge protector, everything...and that's just a drop in the bucket, no pun intended...

Off to watch "The Ed Show" now...there is one person passionate about this spill...

[wiley]

Saw this, had to post it.

[gmack]

Son of _______________

I just spent the last 30 minutes writing a response and it was lost.

Well here's a recap:

-Basically no fishing since late April/Early May since my area (Fourchon, LA) is closed.

-I've seen some sheen

-Keep drilling. We don't shut down air traffic for months after a plane crash.

-I believe if we can keep most of the oil out our marshes the gulf will rebond very quickly.

Gary