Oil has reached the "sugar-white" beaches of Pensacola

[Bluebear]

PENSACOLA BEACH, Florida (Reuters) – Tar balls and sticky oil sheen washed ashore on a northwest Florida beach on Friday, the first apparent impact on the tourism-dependent state from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Oil debris came ashore on Pensacola Beach, part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore which advertises "the world's whitest beaches," as the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history continued to widen.

Florida, the "Sunshine State" with a $60 billion annual tourism industry, had braced for oil from the 46-day-old spill to arrive. Oil had already hit the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama to the west.

Beachgoers on Pensacola Beach, many of them children, picked up rust colored tar blobs, ranging in size from a button to a table tennis ball, scattered along the sugar-white sands.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_oil_spill_florida

[Angry Dragon]

1. Just give it to Haley Barbour

he says nothing to worry about.....non-toxic......just like toothpaste

[Bluebear]

3. And "caramel mousse"

[JuniperLea]

2. Get those kids off the beach!

Those beaches need closed... tout de suite!

This isn't just oil... this is a melange of chemicals that kids shouldn't be playing in.

[Bluebear]

4. Absolutely right. Of course, tourism economy will trump that.

[JuniperLea]

5. If they kill of tourists...

They don't come back.

You're right, of course... money. Period.

[HughMoran]

6. Now they're 'anus brown'

[Dont TS Me Brah]

7. tragic...

those beaches along their are gorgeous...

[Bluebear]

8. welcome to DU

[Name removed]

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