PHOTOS: Oil washing up on the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Isaac

It was only a matter of time.. Greenpeace.  Photos at the link.  Excerpts:

Oil is washing up along the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Isaac, confirming concerns that the storm could churn up oil in the Gulf of Mexico. A Greenpeace research team took samples from beaches along the Alabama coast on September 2, including from an area with hundreds of tar balls in the Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge.

According to the US Coast Guard, oiled pelicans and other wildlife have been found in Louisiana marshes as well. As people struggle with flooding, wind damage, and power outages in the wake of the hurricane, officials have expressed concerns that on top of that disaster, Hurricane Isaac may stir up oil from the BP spill:

“This is another disaster on top of the hurricane that we’re going to have to deal with,” Garret Graves, chairman of Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, told The Huffington Post. “The threat is not insignificant.”

Up to 1 million barrels of oil are estimated to remain in the Gulf of Mexico. That oil remains, Graves said, because BP has failed to clean it all up in the more than two years since the tragedy. “That’s four to five times the oil that was spilled with the Exxon Valdez,” he added.
 

It took awhile, but this phenomenon will likely repeat itself with each new hurricane that passes this area of the Gulf.  Just one more thing to look forward to, right?  Heckuva job, BP..  Heckuva job.

NASA sees tropical trouble brewing in southern Gulf of Mexico

Head's up next week, Gulf Coast..  Physics, via The Extinction Protocol.  Whole Post:

June 23, 2012 – GULF OF MEXICO - It’s quite likely that the fourth tropical cyclone of the North Atlantic Hurricane Season is brewing in the southern Gulf of Mexico, more specifically, in the Yucatan Channel. The Yucatan Channel lies between Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and western Cuba. Tropical depressions seem to have a habit of forming on weekends, and this low appears to be following that habit. On Friday, June 22 at 0900 UTC (5 a.m. EDT), System 96L was located near 22.5 North and 89.5 West, near the north coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. The GOES-13 satellite continually monitors the eastern U.S. and provides updated visible and infrared imagery. An image from June 22 at 1601 UTC (12:01 p.m. EDT) shows a large low pressure area near the Yucatan’s northern coast with disorganized showers and thunderstorms. In the image, some of the thunderstorms near the center of the low appear to be higher than the surrounding clouds, which indicates they are higher and stronger. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) noted that atmospheric pressure on the surface continues to fall, indicating that the low pressure area is intensifying. Forecasters at NHC give System 96L a 70 percent chance of becoming the fourth tropical depression of the Atlantic Hurricane season, sometime over the weekend. Meanwhile, System 96L is expected to move slowly northward into the Gulf of Mexico this weekend (June 23-24). The NHC notes “Interests along the entire United States Gulf Coast should monitor the progress of this disturbance through the weekend. Heavy rains and localized flooding are possible across the Yucatan peninsula, western Cuba, and southern Florida through Saturday.”

Updates forthcoming..