Oil on beach at Fort Morgan, 1/20/2011

Weathered oil, partially buried in sand. This photo was taken at 3pm the day the Coast Guard promised to have clean-up crews on the beach. We originally found this oil on Friday, 1/14, and reported it on Tuesday, 1/18.

We did see evidence of clean-up crews in the form of equipment and a dumpster (which was already on location at the time of the first sighting of the oil on 1/14), however, the oil had not been touched since we first observed it.

Work crew vehicles ahead.

 

Dumpster for oil-contaminated waste.

Tarballs. Note ATV tracks on the right.

When we were at Fort Morgan the first time (1/14) we saw a few people in reflective vests driving along the beach in golf carts--presumably BP workers. On no occasion did we see anyone physically cleaning up the oil on the beach. On the upper right-hand side of the above photograph you can see the atv tracks made by the BP workers traveling back and forth between their stations on the beach. The tracks we found yesterday afternoon were fresh, and later that day a tractor came along to rake the path.


For those who are new to the Gulf Coast, here are some pictures of the view of the offshore rigs from the beach:

Offshore rigs off the coast of Fort Morgan, AL. (1/19/2011)

Offshore rigs off the coast of Fort Morgan, AL. (1/19/2011)

Offshore rigs off the coast of Fort Morgan, AL. (1/19/2011)

Here is a selection from the journal I am keeping about my internship:

Fort Morgan is on a peninsula which sticks out into the Gulf, and it has repeatedly been in the news lately for the tarballs that continue to wash ashore. Its beaches resemble the nice white sand seen further east in Gulf Shores and Western Florida, and the eastern stretch of the area is heavily colonized by beach condos. However, the very tip of the peninsula is barren and abandoned, and fittingly was the only public access we could find to the beach. We got out there, after parking on a sketchy and poorly maintained road, walked by a large dumpster which had some sort of oil-waste-related label, and walked onto the beach. We immediately realized that what we had assumed was seaweed was in fact a swath of slabs of weathered oil buried in the sand. It stretched in both directions quite a ways, including quite far up towards the vegetation line. The tar had clearly been there for at least several weeks, quite possibly longer than that. What was also very interesting is that if you were to stand next to a tar slab and look straight ahead out over the water and pan to the right (clockwise), the horizon is dotted with at least twenty off-shore rigs. If you turn the opposite direction however, there is not a single one to be found. If you were to take an aerial view of the area, you would see that at a certain point on the peninsula, the barren, abandoned beach ceases suddenly at a certain point and from there eastward it is peppered with little beach houses and villas. If you draw a line from that point out into the Gulf, that is the point at which the off-shore rigs cease. This is not terribly surprising based on what I have learned and observed so far, but it is a good example of the influence of commercial interests on the land, and the power of the tourism industry when faced with the oil and gas industry. It also makes me wonder what power an eco-tourism influence might have in this area.

I hope all is well where you are!

Bethany

61 degrees in Mobile :)

Hello friends!

I hope I am finding you well! I will be posting a longer update in a few days, but I wanted to pop in to say hello quickly before I head home for the day. It's hard to believe that I am starting my third week here! I have had such a great time and I can't believe that my time here is coming to a close. People keep asking me if I'm going to move to Mobile--while I am definitely excited to return to sweet home Minnesota soon, I will keep Mobile in mind for the future. The city seems to be the perfect size for someone like me, the people are friendly, and the landscape and beaches are beautiful! What's not to love?

Speaking of beaches, some of you may have received beach photos from me via text message recently. In case you are wondering where those hail from, here is a brief explanation of some of the work I have been doing. Mobile Baykeeper is contributing to program called the Volunteer Field Observer Program. This was an effort created in response to the Gulf Oil Spill in April 2010 to mobilize Alabama citizens to monitor the coastlines for signs of oil on the coastline. Some parts of the coastline have been more consistently monitored than others, so for the past two weeks, Nicole (the AmeriCorps VISTA in charge of the VFOB program at Mobile Baykeeper) and I have been going out to visit beaches which have not gotten as much attention to see what their status is. Our first week out we visited the beaches at Gulf Shores and Perdido Beach. We found tarballs at both beaches, though more abundant in some places than others. This past week we went to Fort Morgan, a beach on the end of a peninsula which has been in the news for continuously having tarballs washing ashore. The pictures I saw in the news did not do justice to the display Nicole and I found. The oil buried in the sand far surpasses the term "tar patties." What we saw was closer to a network of tar slabs and pancakes, clearly weathered from weeks of laying untouched on the beach. We are going out again this week in hopes of checking out the situation at Dauphin Island, a barrier island on the western side of Mobile Bay.

The take home message is that there is still oil washing ashore! The clean up effort is not complete and anyone telling you otherwise is not sharing the whole story! Pictures to follow, hopefully.

All the best,
Bethany

Updates!

Hello everyone!

The last week seems like it has gone by so fast already, and I have had many adventures and discoveries so far. First, a note about the charming city of Mobile. The neighborhood I am living in is filled with beautiful old houses; if it were warm enough out I would spend the evenings hanging out on my darling front porch :) The temperature has been hovering around 38 degrees for the past few days so I feel right at home!

This weekend I walked into town for lunch; I had shrimp and sausage gumbo and sweet tea at Three George's, a Southern chocolate shop that I intend to visit again soon! Then I continued on to Bienville Bookstore where I made friends with the clerk--she was born and raised in Mobile and proved to be a great resource, both in terms of locating some interesting books and getting to know the city better. She recommended some coffee shops and cemeteries I should check out and also strongly encouraged me to visit the bird sanctuary on Dauphin Island. I really hope to get to the bird sanctuary and the coffee shops at least! (We'll see about the cemeteries...). Aside from the books I took home (The South for New Southerners and To Kill A Mockingbird--reread it! reading it in Alabama and with a few more years of education makes a world of difference! The author, Harper Lee, is from Selma, AL!), my favorite discovery was a Southern bridal party taking pictures in the park. They had the most beautiful dresses, the bridesmaids were decked out in magenta and chocolate brown, and the bride looked like a princess! It was lovely!

In terms of my actual work, I just realized that I haven't even mentioned what I'm doing down here. I am spending the month of January here in Mobile interning for an environmental non-profit organization called Mobile Baykeeper. Mobile Baykeeper strives for clean water, clean air, healthy people and economy, and a responsible government. To that end, they are involved in a variety of efforts involving monitoring the activity of companies, organizations, and legislative bodies; fund-raising; raising awareness; and contributing to restoration projects. After the Gulf Oil Spill of April 2010, Baykeeper is also involved in organizing volunteers to monitor the coastline of Alabama for the continued presence of oil (VFOB). If you're on Facebook, you should go like Mobile Baykeeper! Or sign up to become a member at http://www.mobilebaykeeper.org/ :)

My work so far has consisted of a few different tasks, with more expansion to come soon, hopefully! Most of last week I worked on researching the federal legislation which led to the presence of offshore drilling off the Gulf Coast. I also got the chance to go out with Nicole, Mobile Baykeeper's AmeriCorps VISTA member, to check out a report of a suspicious green liquid being discharged into a ditch along the highway. The liquid turned out to be legal and environmentally harmless, but it was still quite exciting to be deployed to investigate!

On Thursday Nicole and I went out to survey one-mile stretches of beach at both Gulf Shores and Perdido Beach as a part of the Volunteer Field Observer (VFOB) monitoring program. We were following up on some parts of the coast which have not been consistently monitored. One of the reasons for this is that the eastern side of the Bay is very similar to Florida in that the beaches are developed primarily with commercial condos. The result of this is that most of the beaches are private, which greatly limits volunteer access. While we were out there we did indeed find evidence of oil: tar balls strewn among seashells, and a few tar patties which exceeded 5cm in length. We also found beach birds--sanderlings, seagulls, and pelicans, all alive and well!-- and snowbirds--people from colder northern areas weathering the bitter winter in a warmer climate; I was especially excited to meet some people from Green Bay, Wisc.! We chatted with some of the people out fishing or walking on the beach, and taught some of them how to identify tar balls. One woman and her husband were already able to pick the them out from among the shells; I overheard her remark, "Let's hope Mother Nature takes care of [the oil]."

Before I wrap up this update, here are a few more reasons I love Mobile:

• At noon when the church bells ring, they play little songs for about fifteen minutes :)
• The squirrels are extremely bold! While I was hanging out in the park on Saturday, one ventured so close to my foot that I could have kicked him. No joke, he was 3cm away from the tip of my shoe.
• Down town there is a bar named Boo Radley's. I have not explored it, but I certainly appreciate the reference. :)

I hope wherever you are, you are doing well! Please comment with questions, comments, life updates, anything!
-Bethany

Welcome to Mobile, AL.

Hello from Mobile!After 3 full days, I have picked up a few things about the city, but I still have a lot to discover. Here is what I have learned to far:

• Mobile was the first site of Mardi Gras in the United States. As in New Orleans, when you drive down the parade route you can see beads glittering from the tree branches.
• Mobile is the rainiest city in the US. While Seattle has more rainy days per year, Mobile wins out with an average annual rainfall of 67 inches (Seattle's average is 52 inches). I saw evidence of this first hand today, it started storming around 2-3am and didn't let up until around 9am. Fortunately, as an adaptation to this and other forms of excessive water collection, many houses are raised up on stilts.
• Culturally, Mobile resembles the Gulf Coast region more than the rest of Alabama. This is seen in the effects of occupation by the Spanish, French, and British at different points in history, as well as the food culture which prominently features seafood. As the coastal region of Alabama is quite small, and, due both to the absence of reliable roads and the presence of a large swamp, was physically inaccessible to the rest of Alabama for decades, the northern portion of Alabama is culturally distinct.
• On New Years Eve, as a unique local tradition, instead of dropping a giant glittering ball, in Mobile they drop a giant Moon Pie.

The discovery of these and other fun facts about sunny (and sometimes rainy) Mobile have delighted me for the past few days.

I hope all is well in your part of the world! :)
Bethany

Hello World!

Hi everyone! I have arrived safely in Mobile, AL! I am in the process of getting set up in my little apartment for the month, and spent my first day in the office today. More updates to come!
-Bethany