The kids and I spent the week in NOLA. There were shortages of oysters in some of the restaurants, though others seemed to have access to some from farther west. On the way home, we stopped by Pensacola Beach, just to see what we could see. There were at least 1,000 BP employees there engaged in cleanup, and perhaps a 3rd of the beach was restricted from the public. You simply could not get close to where the BP employees are working to see how bad the damage is. Apparently, it is now a crime to set foot on the areas where the cleanup is occurring, and BP has designated those areas.
When, in the history of the U.S., have we allowed a private company to dictate those kinds of terms for cleaning up a mess they made?
The oil is clearly visible in Mobile Bay, you can see large mats of oil floating in the water. It's gross.
Pensacola has a strong odor of petroleum in and around Pensacola Bay. They are saying that the areas farther east will be closed in the next week or so.
Unbelievably, people were allowing their children to swim in the water, even though it was clearly marked as contaminated by the spill.