No oil here

No oil here, but Keys still suffer
BY TIMOTHY O'HARA Citizen Staff

Authorities on Tuesday said the threat of oil reaching the Florida Keys has diminished for now, based on the observations of a Coast Guard fleet of ships and aircraft that has been patrolling the Dry Tortugas for three weeks.
The fleet has confirmed that oil from the Deepwater Horizon rig is still hundreds of miles from the Keys and Dry Tortugas. Its mission was to scout out satellite-detected "anomalies," and it found none were BP-related oil sheen or tar balls, Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Matt Moorlag said.
That and other information has prompted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to amend models that said oil could be present and suspend production of daily offshore trajectory maps, as no oil appears to be moving far enough away from the spill site, Moorlag said.
"It's giving us a look at what's going on and what's not going on," Coast Guard spokesman Michael Hulme said.
Because the northern end of the Loop Current has been pinched off into a large eddy for most of the past two months -- it periodically attaches and detaches -- oil has had no clear path to the Keys, satellite images show. There have been no reports of recoverable oil in the Loop Current or Eddy Franklin, as it's called, according to NOAA.
The news came the same day BP responded to the Marathon City Council's insistence last week that it would lead its own oil spill response for the Middle Keys, saying BP and others would not be as effective as locals. The council criticized BP's response plan for addressing the cleanup of oil only after it reached the Keys rather than preventative measures.
BP's letter to the council tried to assure the city that BP, the Coast Guard and others have response plans and that BP will pay to have all the right people and equipment in place.
"BP will continue to rely on the independent assessments of government experts with regard to both the potential impacts and consult with them on appropriate emergency responses for a variety of scenarios," BP spokesman Andrew Van Chau wrote. "At this time, the threat assessment among these experts is that there remains a low risk of only weathered oil from the accident, such as tar balls, making landfall in the Keys."
A Coast Guard C-130 research plane and two helicopters, fitted with computers and cameras, will continue to conduct daily flights between the Keys and Apalachicola, according to the government's Joint Incident Command. NOAA also will continue to produce daily onshore trajectory maps.
The Monroe County Commission will hold a public meeting at 10 a.m. Tuesday at the Marathon Government Center to discuss the response to the oil spill and its possible impact on the Keys.