As tar balls washed up on a Florida beach for the first time, Panhandle and state tourism officials began grappling with how to escape a disastrous summer season for the local economy. Angst was most acute in Pensacola Beach, where the mostly-pellet-size oil globs began to appear early Friday.
Meanwhile, Gov. Charlie Crist was making the rounds on the national news circuit, talking about the federal governments oil spill response and visiting Louisiana with President Barack Obama.
Laura Lee, spokeswoman for the Pensacola Convention and Visitors Bureau, said hoteliers and restaurant owners are monitoring their shore properties to assess whether patrons could encounter tar balls within eyeshot. But for now the beaches are still open and the water is still clear and safe for swimmers, she said. Right now were taking this one day at a time.
Lee said the bureau has $700,000 of the $25 million emergency marketing money the state procured from British Petroleum, and it is expecting another $700,000. It has not started releasing its BP-funded ads yet, and Lee said she doesn't know how they would be tweaked -- or if they can be -- to accommodate the arrival of tar balls.
We have not worked that out yet, she said. Were still working with our creative marketing team."
Kathy Torian, spokesperson for Visit Florida, said the Florida Live Web site will be updated regularly with warnings of beach closures as they occur. Visit Florida, the states public -private marketing corporation, has received $7.15 million of BPs emergency marketing money so far. Another $4.4 million has gone to local tourism marketing campaigns
Carol Dover, president and CEO of the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association, said that the tourism industry is going to continue marketing Florida beaches as untouched by the spill, as those in Destin are.
While we are respectful of any area that gets hit, we want to remind visitors that Florida has a lot to offer, she said.
Dover said its too soon to determine whether the main oil slick will reach North Florida shores, but right now the beaches are safe to use.
Nonetheless, its becoming quite clear that the tourism industry might need more marketing money from BP.
$25 million was a drop in the bucket, she said.
Niceville Republican Sen. Don Gaetz, a vocal critic of the long time it took for Crist to get BPs emergency marketing funds to the tourism industry, said that BPs 11 cleanup teams, overseen by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, did a good job of cleaning up the gobs of goo Friday morning.
I think the governor is doing now what he should have done earlier: put the heat on British Petroleum and its resources, he said.
Joe Murphy, Florida program director for the Gulf Restoration Network, an environmental advocacy group serving five Gulf Coast states, said that Florida needs to press for more involvement from the federal government in fighting the spill. The tar balls washing onto Pensacola Beach pose a threat to birds, sea turtles and larval fish, but its nothing compared to the main plume in the Gulf. And it needs to be stemmed soon, he said.
Theres some frustration. Were very hopeful that when the governor talks to the president, hell convey a very strong message, Murphy said.
By early Friday afternoon the edge of the oil spill was estimated at less than 4 miles off the coast.
Since oil started gushing into the Gulf on April 22, Visit Florida has concentrated on the positive news that Floridas beaches have been unsullied by the Deepwater Horizon disaster and open for business. Since receiving news Wednesday that the oil could reach Pensacola by Friday or the weekend, it has tweaked its ads to direct tourists toward its Florida Live feature, a map with photos the state's beaches to show whether oil has arrived. She said a new ad airing as soon as Friday would mention that the tar balls had arrived and would direct visitors to the site to see if they were on specific beaches.
A BP clean-up crew was retrieving the brownish-red balls Friday morning, Pensacola sources said. Much of it was found near the Pensacola Beach fishing pier.
The goo also arrived on the eastern shore of Gulf Islands National Seashore, a group of barrier islands off the North Florida, Southern Alabama Coast and Mississippi shoreline. And investigators from the Deepwater Horizon Unified Response Team were trying this morning to confirm whether the tar balls were from the BP Deepwater Horizon spill.
BP announced that it had been able to fit a containment cap on the main ruptured pipe at the Deepwater rig site, allowing it to capture the majority of the escaping oil. Workers were trying to make it function as ideally as possible throughout Friday.
Crist's office announced that the governor sent another letter to BP America President Lamar McKay on Friday, this one asking for an extra $100 million for the Florida Institute of Oceanography. Crist said in the letter the money would be used immediately to monitor and study the spill's impact on the 1,260 miles of Florida coastline.
Reach Alex Tiegen at atiegen@sunshinestatenews.com or at (561) 329-5389.
