There's little chance an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico will ever reach Georgia shores, experts say, but places Georgians go to have fun may not be so lucky.
While unlikely that this would happen anytime soon, the slick could get caught up in the so-called Loop Current, which could send the oil around the Florida Keys and then north into the Atlantic, said Stephen Smith, executive director for the Knoxville-based Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.
“But by the time it gets around Georgia, it probably would be pretty dissipated,” Smith said.
Georgia should escape immediate environmental damage.
“We’re not going to suffer the loss of wildlife,” that states such as Louisiana and Mississippi will see," said Neill Herring, a state lobbyist for the environmental group the Sierra Club.
But areas such as Mobile Bay, Perdido Key and Destin – popular vacation spots for Georgians – now are threatened by the massive oil spill that is set to eclipse the Exxon Valdez as the nation’s worst environmental disaster in decades.
“The gulf shores, that beautiful, sugar-white sand hasn’t experienced this,” said Smith.
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist on Friday declared a state of emergency for the Panhandle region. The oil from the massive spill could hit Florida's beaches by Monday.
An oil rig leased to BP (formerly British Petroleum) caught fire April 20 after an explosion and sank. Eleven oil rig workers are missing and presumed dead.
About 210,000 gallons of oil a day are flowing into the Gulf from a blown-out well a mile underwater. The leak is five times bigger than first believed and oil is already washing ashore in Louisiana.
It imperils hundreds of species of fish, birds and other wildlife along the Gulf Coast, one of the world's richest seafood grounds, teeming with shrimp, oysters and other marine life.
President Obama on Friday directed that no new offshore oil drilling leases be issued unless rigs have new safeguards to prevent a repeat of the explosion.
His decision comes one month after announcing that waters off the coast of Georgia and other Atlantic coast states will be opened to offshore oil and gas exploration.
Republic Gov. Sonny Perdue and Republican members of Congress have said they support oil and gas exploration off the state’s coast. But Obama officials, including Interior Secretary Kan Salazar warned that just because there could be drilling didn’t mean it would necessarily happen.
And, especially not now, environmental advocates such as Herring said.
“I will be greatly surprised if there’s any advance in offshore exploration after this. I don’t see how it could happen,” he said. “So much of it is based on the claim that modern technology would make oil catastrophes impossible – and that’s obviously not true.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story
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