Georgia Oil and Water
As we all watch in horror at the impact of this oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico I wanted to contact some of our experts to see how we are preparing for any possible impacts on our precious coast. I spoke yesterday to the GA Skidaway Institute of Oceanography based in Savannah about the oil spill. They are not monitoring the oil leak itself and recognize the numerous variables involved so they are tracking the Loop Current and the Gulf Stream waterways for oil.
I am told that even if the oil hits the currents just right and gets pulled through the Florida Straits and up the East Coast in the Gulf Stream that because of the distance traveled, the degradation, the dilution, the speed of the current and that the current is so far (75+ miles) off the Georgia Coast that the impact would or should be minimal. While this is good news I would like to make sure we have an asterisk beside this information. This is an optimistic view not based solely on concrete facts but some hypothetical information as there is simply too many variables to get a 100% conclusive outlook. And another point is that the oil is still leaking!
I can say that we are preparing for any and all scenarios and I will be making a visit next week to the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography for an on the ground look at what we are doing. Hopefully we can have a better handle on the situation in the Gulf and we can shift more of our resources over to help our neighbors clean up this mess.