DE Officials Prep for Possible Oil & Injured Animals

The Coast Press is a free, weekly news rag here published by Gannett.  That said, they sometimes write something longer than 3 or 4 paragraphs  relevant to current important issues.  This is one:

LEWES -- As oil billows outward from the Deepwater Horizon platform in the Gulf of Mexico, local officials are preparing for the possible consequences of the spill along the Delaware coast.
Suzanne Thurman, executive director of the Marine Education Research and Rehabilitation Institute, said volunteers will be undergoing training this month and assembling supplies needed to respond to wildlife that show signs of contamination.
This summer, she said she expects to see an increased number of stranded animals due to the spill and a forecasted increase in storms.
"We're trying to have everything in place, to be ready and proactive, rather than be responding in the midst of a crisis," she said.
Secretary Collin O'Mara, of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, said he's had a team in close contact with various federal agencies while section leaders review emergency response plans and undergo refresher training.
He said the U.S. Coast Guard has told state officials there is a less than 1 percent chance of the BP spill reaching Cape Hatteras, N.C., en masse.
"It's a very remote chance, but we'd rather plan for the worst and not have to use it than be caught off guard," he said.
A series of simulations released last week by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a climatology lab funded by the National Science Foundation, projected that oil would round the tip of Florida and shoot up the Gulf Stream as early as mid-July.
"The timing depends critically on the loop current, which no one can predict," said NCAR scientist Synte Peacock.
The loop current is a warm ocean current that could funnel the oil through the Florida Straits and out into the Atlantic Ocean.
"It's really a question of when, because eventually -- within six months (of April 20) at the upper limit -- some oil will get caught up in the loop current," she said.

Read the rest of the story HERE.

Today there was a report that oil is seeping from the sea floor and the well might collapse, which would render the secrecy on the part of BP more than a cosmic joke on us all.

Some joke.

And so it goes.
*