Posted at 2:28 p.m. EDT Tuesday, August 8, 2000

Oil spill shuts down beaches By DANIEL de VISE

An oil spill darkened the shoreline from Hillsboro Beach to Golden Beach today, closing area beaches and threatening wildlife ranging from pelicans to baby sea turtles emerging from their nests.

Park rangers at John U. Lloyd State Park spotted oil in the water at 9 a.m. and notified the Coast Guard. Beach-goers in Hollywood and Dania Beach, the worst-hit areas, weren't allowed in or even near the water all day. Cleanup efforts began around noon.

The exact source and size of the spill wasn't immediately known, but officials consider it the largest such event in Broward in at least 10 years. Lifeguards who went in the water emerged coated in black goo and resorted to household cleansers to remove it.

In this area, this is the worst it's been since I've been here, and that's 10 years,'' said Terry Edwards, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Among the potential casualties: Hundreds or thousands of sea turtles who by unlucky coincidence hatch from their eggs at this time of year. Environmental officials also worried about the impact on pelicans and other seagoing birds.

Because of uncertainties in the tide and other factors, cleanup workers didn't know by Tuesday afternoon whether the oil might travel farther south into Miami-Dade County or north into Palm Beach County. It appeared, however, that the tide had already washed most of the oil ashore, minimizing further spread.

http://www.herald.com/content/today/docs/047712.htm

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), August 08, 2000

Answers

Oil slick closes 15 miles of South Florida beaches

The Associated Press

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (August 9, 2000 12:21 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - The largest South Florida oil slick in at least 10 years kept about 15 miles of beach closed Wednesday. Coast Guard officials speculated that the mess was intentional because no ships had reported accidental spills.

"It would be pretty hard to come up with another reason," Coast Guard Cmdr. Richard Ferraro said.

Workers rushed to clean a state recreation area where thousands of endangered sea turtles were about to hatch.

The heavy crude oil was discovered Tuesday, washing ashore in puddles, globules and clumps, and swimming was quickly banned from Pompano Beach to Golden Beach, a stretch that includes Fort Lauderdale.

The oil could cause respiratory problems, skin rashes and eye damage in humans, and it is potentially fatal to wildlife.

The oil could kill the turtle hatchlings, officials said.

"Once they hit it, they're gone," Capt. Glenn Morris of the Dania Beach Marine Rescue Division told The Miami Herald.

Some beach visitors were coated with oil Tuesday.

"I went in knee deep, and it just stuck everywhere," Dagmar Kardel of Fort Lauderdale told The Herald. "It's terrible. Especially with so many pelicans ... here. There is no way to get it off them."

Randy and Jan Hamater, vacationers from Chicago, said they couldn't figure out why lifeguards were waving people out of the water.

"We thought maybe there were sharks," Jan Hamater said.

Several other oil slicks have washed up on South Florida beaches in the past decade, but none had led to a ban on swimming and most involved less than 1,000 gallons of oil.

A month ago, swimming was banned for nine days on a long stretch of Miami-Dade beaches after a broken main spewed sewage into the sea.

http://www.nandotimes.com/noframes/story/0,2107,500237523-500347941- 502012593-0,00.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), August 09, 2000.