First Hand account: Florida Beaches Are Polluted With Oil (I was wrong)

Originally posted by Come Clean
I've already debunked the OP as that beach looks the same now as it did in 2009.

Tell you what CC ... let's see a vid of you splish-splashing around that water, followed by a hearty lunch of local fish and shellfish and then you can claim your debunk.

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
reply to post by Come Clean

 

Do you have a video of someone digging into the sand in 2009 and seeing black-tinted water filling in the hole?

Doh! You beat me to it on that one.

Originally posted by Come Clean
reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

 

The issue is moot. I've already debunked the OP as that beach looks the same now as it did in 2009.

My friend, do you really imagine that a YouTube video from 2009 is an accurate reflection of the state of the beach there right now?

As someone who lives on Miami Beach I can tell you the beach looks different every morning and every afternoon and every evening of each and every single day.

I don't care how High Definition your TV is, or how good you imagine your eyesight is when it comes to watching a one dimensional flat representation of a scene, it is no substitute for actually witnessing an experience with all your senses.

So let's ask?

Did the Beach smell the same from one video to the next?

Did the Beach feel the same from one video to the next?

Did the water smell the same from one video to the next?

Did the water feel the same from one video to the next?

The only thing you have debunked is no you don't have a source for the sourceless accusation the Georgia University study was funded by the Republicans.

Fortunately the scientific community is not relying on YouTube videos for there studies but are actually going to the ocean IN PERSON each and every day to engage ALL OF THEIR SIX SENSES.

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
reply to post by Come Clean

 

Do you have a video of someone digging into the sand in 2009 and seeing black-tinted water filling in the hole?

Nothing has changed at that beach. Everyone is just hyper-sensitive to everything when they go to the beach now. I can go dig in my backyard and it will fill with black tinted water. It's called minerals and dirt and everyday pollution that's been going on for years. Some beaches in Florida you can drive your car right up on the beach.

Nothing has changed....

Show me some dead fish washing up then we can talk.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


Excellent post, ProtoplasmicTraveler! Thanks for all the links!

As far as I know, the FDA still does NOT have a protocol to test for Corexit in seafood. And they're using the old "sniff" test for oil.

Oh goody, I feel more confident about eating the Gulf seafood now.

SeaWind

I'll show you guys the video from 2009 of a guy digging if you guys provide the chemical analysis of what that black tinted water was. Could it have been broken down seaweed? There seems to be a lot of it on that beach. Is that what caused the discoloration?

I've proved the beach looks the same a year ago as it does today. Now prove that black tinted water was anything other than broken down seaweed.

reply to post by Come Clean

Show me some dead fish washing up then we can talk.

So you promise to stop politically trolling the thread until someone presents you some dead fish on the beach? That's a relief!

People who actually live along Coastal Waterways are much more in tune to their often subtle changes.

You might want to do a little first hand investigation before you start telling people who have, they aren't witnessing what they are witnessing.

Originally posted by Come Clean

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
reply to post by Come Clean

 

Do you have a video of someone digging into the sand in 2009 and seeing black-tinted water filling in the hole?

Nothing has changed at that beach. Everyone is just hyper-sensitive to everything when they go to the beach now. I can go dig in my backyard and it will fill with black tinted water. It's called minerals and dirt and everyday pollution that's been going on for years. Some beaches in Florida you can drive your car right up on the beach.

Nothing has changed....

Show me some dead fish washing up then we can talk.

hmm Im not so sure you've watched the videos in the OP? The fish arent the issue, it's the filter feeders, he clearly showed conch shells washed up.. AND he even explained the more_than_usual amount of such shells.

I guess you'll be more impressed when the dead human bodies wash up? What would impress you more??

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


ProtoplasmicTraveler, I would be very suspicious of anyone urging people to swim in the waters shown in these videos. Or urging people to eat the seafood from it -- how about those dead baby conches & horseshoe crabs? Mmmmm, yummy!

Some trolls are government disinfo agents.

SeaWind

Originally posted by Come Clean
Where is the control video? You know, the one that shows the beach before the oil spill.

It's amazing you ask this question. Your not going to take his word for it, that's fine.

So you've seen this type of condition on this beach before, and are sure it's safe for people to swim in the water there?

Originally posted by SeaWind
reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

 

ProtoplasmicTraveler, I would be very suspicious of anyone urging people to swim in the waters shown in these videos. Or urging people to eat the seafood from it -- how about those dead baby conches & horseshoe crabs? Mmmmm, yummy!

Some trolls are government disinfo agents.

SeaWind

I think both are potentially risky at this point, and in large part because the various chemicals that might adversely impact your health aren't really going to be identified as the cause of it.

You will simply end up with cancer of this, or an enlarged that, or a shut down this, that will be accellerated or enhanced because of the chemicals.

Cause of the illness will likely seem natural but it won't be!

It might take a decade or two to know the full impacts.

By the way most 'disinfo agents' are really just well but misplaced intentioned volunteers who are so singuarly focused on an issue, they lack the ability to be objective or critical.

They sure don't do a good enough job at it to be earning a paycheck!

Thanks my friend.

The University of Georgia Science Department doesn't seem that unbiased to me.

They went into great detail claiming Armageddon was about to befall us.

Samantha Joye Lead Researcher

Originally posted by Come Clean
The University of Georgia Science Department doesn't seem that unbiased to me.

They went into great detail claiming Armageddon was about to befall us.

Samantha Joye Lead Researcher

Thanks for the curveball. You're confusing indeed! Sarcasm is a hard thing to detect on a message board...

So, now that we have determined "The University of Georgia Science Department" has claimed the apocolypse is upon us and this is not an "un-biased" source..... Let's now discuss your motive, without sarcasm please?

[edit on 18-8-2010 by Wookiep]

Originally posted by Danbones
The fact that they used a percent automatically means they are being uuummm... inaccurate.
To say 75 percent implies they know how much oil leaked, and how much was dispersed, and how much was collected.
In which case they would have a number.
So why express the amount of oil as a percentage then?
Because they don't have a number.
IMHO

I agree. They don't know. They pulled a number out of their nether regions and the press regurgitated it, like they always do. The reality is, other than what they sucked up and burned off, the rest of it is still out there. My guess is 75-90% is still in the water. If somebody want's to tell me now that the Corexit/oil mixture can't end up in the clouds or a strong storm system, I would argue they are on crack. This crab is going to end up in the air and eventually rain down on us. When entire crops start dying for "no apparent reason", we'll know why.

Originally posted by Come Clean
The University of Georgia Science Department doesn't seem that unbiased to me.

They went into great detail claiming Armageddon was about to befall us.

Samantha Joye Lead Researcher

Actually no, they make no such claim in the article you linked.

I am guessing this is why you did not bother to quote what you are contending through a excerpt of the article.

No such claims are being made, and it's a balanced and reasonable article stating a number of well known facts.

So not only have you failed to detail how this is being funded by "Republicrats"

But you haven't even accurately described the article.

reply to post by Come Clean


Nice find. Many people like myself are not too familiar with beaches in the Gulf. I know the beaches in BC Canada have all sorts of decaying vegetation washing up on shore and if you don’t bend down and touch it… it could be almost anything. As I was looking at the vids posted by the OP it did not look like an oil-spilled beach... it looked like a beach with all sorts of decaying crap on it.

Thanks a lot for posting and keeping us all updated. I was getting nervous when you went into the water barefoot. I hope there won't be any ill effects. Keep a watch on everyone. If you start to feel ill, make sure you get medical attention-even if you think it's nothing.
I found this article about the Florida panhandle. Seems there is a lot more oil there than the government has let on.

news.yahoo.com...

Thanks for the vids! We need to figure out how to get your vids to the MSM. Have you contacted anyone yet? Do you plan on trying to contact anyone?

My fiancee and I were just in Sarasota last week. I had never been to the beach in Florida, but she maintained that there was something different about the water, and how the beach looked. She also did say there were a lot more shells on the beach than what she remembered. We did not swim, as I personally believe that Corexit and oil is not something that I want to immerse myself in, though we did take a pretty long walk down the beach. I still wish her parents would have been more receptive to me saying it probably is not the safest place health wise to live now.

@ComeClean: No dead fish, but you did happen to see the little crab shells and conch's? I do believe that counts as dead wild life, does it not?

Originally posted by getreadyalready

Second, let me say that I have lived in this area for 10 years. I am familiar with the normal way the beach looks, the water looks, the wildlife reacts. I am familiar with the seasonal changes. I have ridden out storms, I know what Red Tide and storm damage looks like. I have swam at closed beaches, I have surfed in storm surges, etc., etc.

Normally.......Our beaches are sugary white. The quartz is unique to this area. It leaves the Appalachian Mountains and it is pinkish. It is sun bleached and it is so pure it squeeks when you walk on it. Of all the beaches I have experienced in Cancun, Cozumel, Jamaica, Hawaii, the West Coast, of all of the beaches, the Florida Panhandle is by far the prettiest. It has sugar white, squeeky sand, and beautiful emerald green water, visibility for snorkelers and scuba divers is typically almost 100 ft. There is no place better.

Today, we noticed something was......just off? The water was darker, the seaweed was worse, the beach was littered with Conch shells. The Horshoe crabs were aggressive. The fish were jumping a lot. But, we waded in anyway. At first we thought the seaweed had made the water darker. A tropical system passed through a few days ago, so it made sense. Once we were in the water, it felt different. It was slicker, and it burned some scrapes on my leg. Typically the seawater is soothing to skin. Today it was uncomfortable. Still we pushed on, hate to waste a good beach day, and we were looking forward to watching a sunset.

My wife and I got up and looked more closely at the water, and we made our kids back away from it. Only now did we notice the suspended frothy brown color. We looked at each other and down the beach and we noticed a linear striation of color. The typical bright white sand was up on the dunes, but as we looked closer to the water, lines of darker and darker water marks were present. At the water line the sand was grey/black. I took my foot and dug down and the sand below the surface was brown and oily looking. The water that filled the hole, even many feet from the beach, the water that filled the hole was brown and cloudy!!

Now, the seaweed, dead conches, erratic fish behavior, and odd feeling seawater all made sense.

The dispersants are certainly working. The oil is thoroughly mixed into the sea water. It isn't washing up on the shore, instead it is embedding into the sand. The filter fish are feeling the effects the worst. The oyster beds and shell fish are dying off. The seaweed is dying. Sadly, people were fishing just down the beach from us!!

Here are the videos and I am still working on getting the snapshots up. Please feel free to ask questions. I am totally disheartened and upset at this moment. My wife was feeling depressed and we went to the beach to cheer up. That was a big mistake!

Well, this post REALLY confuses me. First off I do agree that there is quite likely a LOT of oil mixed into the waters of the Gulf, and it really wouldn't surprise me in the least to see water made murky by this mixture.

But I've lived in Crawfordville (right below Tallahassee) for the past 19 years and quite frankly my wife and I don't go to Alligator Point or Bald Point if we want to go to the beach. We go to St. George Island, because the beaches at the previously mentioned spots ARE poor, at best. The water IS murky and the beaches are no where NEAR the sparkling white sand as indicated at the start of this thread. Can't say I have ever dug a hole in the beach, but it certainly wouldn't surprise me if the water filling in the hole would be just as shown in the video.

Oh yeah, about those dead "conches". Pick them up and look inside. They are hermit crabs, which are completely normal. You can even see the tracks the crabs made near most of the shells.

Sorry, something smells fishy with this one..


[edit on 18-8-2010 by Rich Z]

reply to post by getreadyalready


The Beach looks sickly compared to how it looked 5 years ago when my last visit.

You do a good job reporting on conditions, like the shadow reporter.

My prayers are that the beaches and waters will be in much better shape by next summer.