WORLD PROPERTY CHANNEL ®

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission this morning identified the Louisiana oil spill slick six miles from the Navarre Beach fishing pier in Northwest Florida.

State EPA officials caution the slick, headed directly towards Santa Rosa County shoreline, may move onto the popular beach area itself by Friday or this weekend.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist was expected to issue a state of emergency status today that would cover the entire state, from the Panhandle area down to the Florida Keys. He had previously issued a state of emergency just for the Panhandle down to the Tampa Bay area.

Charlie Crist

Crist is set to activate the Florida National Guard when the spill or sheen arrives, Time magazine reports. The troops would only have to clean up more easily retrievable and less eco-damaging tar balls, Crist said.

Escambia County Emergency Manager John Dosh told the Pensacola News-Journal the county's local response plan was activated Tuesday in response to the latest forecasts, which show oil could make landfall in Pensacola between today and Friday.

There are no plans to close area beaches at this time, but Dosh said reconnaissance teams have begun patrolling the beach on all-terrain vehicles, in boats and on foot, to look for signs of oil washing ashore, according to the News-Journal.

John Dosh

"One thing you've got to remember is these waterways are still open," Dosh said. "Boat traffic is occurring back and forth. Especially the intercoastal waterways.

"We can't close those down until the Coast Guard says we can do so."

Pensacola Bay's main defense against the oil, a V-shaped boom designed to capture oil at the mouth of Pensacola Pass, is staged near the pass and is ready to be deployed when needed.

The newspaper reports the latest projections from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)  indicate weathered oil from the leading edge of the April 20 Deepwater Horizon oil spill 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.

Skimmers have been deployed near Pensacola with the hopes of removing that oil from near shore waters and preventing and minimizing any potential impacts to Florida.

The NOAA states currents in the Gulf of Mexico have formed an eddy, a circular current, which caused the loop current to pinch off at the Florida straits and is projected to move oil westward.

Carol Dover

Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi have all been hit by the spill.

Time magazine reports Florida is struggling to persuade tourists to visit.

"What we're bracing for mostly is people canceling reservations over a false impression that we've got some sort of [Exxon] Valdez catastrophe washing up on our beautiful beaches," Carol Dover, head of the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association in Tallahassee told Time.

"I'm not going to say we won't see anything, but officials are telling me that if we do, it will be minimal. We're fighting hysterical hype here as well as the spill."

Dover is most worried about the Panhandle, which takes in 90% of its crucial tourism revenue during the summer, and where some hotels have already seen 50% cancellation because of oil-spill concerns, according to Time.

Jane Lubchenco

NOAA officials, meanwhile, are trying to downplay the potential impact of the spill on Florida's billion-dollar tourism industry.

NOAA president Jane Lubchenco told Time that while the Loop Current is certain to snare some of the spill, by the time any oil reaches Florida, it "would be highly weathered, and the natural processes of evaporation and dispersion would reduce [its] volume significantly."

She added that it would also be "significantly diminished by ongoing chemical dispersant application."

To help market that message to the rest of the world, BP has given Florida $25 million, as well as another $25 million to aid the state's oil spill prevention and cleanup efforts.

Navarre Beach fishing pier, Santa Rosa County, FL

The spill has even prompted a relationship of sorts between Washington and Havana Time reports. The State Department revealed this week that officials from Cuba, whose economy depends inordinately on tourism, requested advice from U.S. scientists about how to protect the island's coral reefs should the Loop Current deposit some of the slick their way.

Please see related Real Estate Channel posting:

BP Oil Hands Florida $25 Million Check for Tourism Promotion, May 27, 2010

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