Spill may stop 16 to 19 million gallons of drinking water daily for Tampa Bay residents

...Emergency planning sources in Florida have informed that the state faces severe fresh water shortages and power blackouts if the thick crude oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster clogs sea water intakes at the largest seawater desalinization plant in the United States - the Tampa Bay Seawater Desalinization Plant at Apollo Beach.

The plant, which uses seawater reverse osmosis to turn seawater into 16 to 19 million gallons of drinking water daily for residents of the Tampa Bay area, faces the threat of filtration membranes becoming clogged if oil from the Gulf of Mexico enters its intake pipes. Such an event would render the plant unable to process seawater, resulting in a major fresh water shortage for Tampa Bay.

Similarly, oil clogging the water cooling intakes at the Crystal River Nuclear Power Plant on the Gulf of Mexico coast, some 80 miles north of Tampa, could force the shutdown of the Unit 3 pressurized water nuclear reactor. Such an event would result in power shutdowns in the Florida areas served by the power plant.*

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19575

This gook starts clogging the plants and the state is going to be in a world of hurt.

FAIL. As usual. The Republicons are heading right into the maw of the collossal catastrophe their FAIL strategeries created. How perfectly republicon.

As much as I feel for Tampa, this might turn out to be the perfect disaster. We'll see how much we hear chants of Drill Baby Drill.

a person is complict in this mess if they don't ride a bike to work or used a plastic bag two weeks ago.

bu tthen to see other dems treat us like we deserve this is dispicable..well when their children or childrens children contract sicknesses from this shit or the rain filled with oil or the shit BP has sprayed down the road..I wonder how they will feel then??

Republicans. I have tomorrow off and and going to the beach. Each time I go now I wonder if it will be the last time there will still be clean sand and fish to catch.

It might be too late for that if you live on the Gulf of Mexico. I have read anecdotal reports on other sites (sorry, cannot remember where) whereby people who visited the Gulf beaches last weekend are reporting respiratory illness, skin rashes and/or diarrhoea.

will still be able to run their fridges & freezers.

the freezer. We threw out an awful lot when we were without power in 2004.

P.S. the rich folks will use gas generators, not many tree huggers in that group.

BP and their whores in the corporate media have been lying since day one about the amount of oil leaking into the Gulf. First of all there are three leaks, not one, at the Deepwater Horizon site. Secondly, satellite imagery shows that are two other leaks at different sites. Thirdly, the damages will go far beyond fouled beaches and dead marine life. There are nuclear and coal-fired power plants that rely on clean Gulf water for cooling. There are also desalinization plants that use reverse osmosis to convert seawater into drinking for residents in Florida and other Gulf states. If oil clogs these intakes, then the economic damages will be far beyond anything people have been told. For more information, check out this article: http://www.examiner.com/x-38220-Orlando-Independent-Examiner~y2010m6d9-Satellite-imagery-shows-up-to-three-oil-leaks-in-Gulf-FL-power-and-water-supplies-may-be-at-risk

Paths of 194 floating probes released into the yellow-outlined area in the northeast Gulf of Mexico between February 1996 and February 1997 as part of a study by the Mineral Management Service (MMS). The probes were all launched into waters with depth between 20 and 60 meters. Yang, H., R.H. Weisberga, P.P. Niilerb, W. Sturgesc, and W. Johnson, 1999, Lagrangian circulation and forbidden zone on the West Florida Shelf, Continental Shelf Research Volume 19, Issue 9, July 1999, Pages 1221-1245.

Using satellite tracked surface drifters during the one year period from February 1996 to February 1997, a drifter free region, called the “forbidden zone”, is found over the southern portion of the West Florida Shelf. This finding is consistent with historical drift bottle data and with a recent numerical model study of the West Florida Shelf circulation response to climatological wind forcing.

Direct drifter simulations by numerical model during March 1996 show a good agreement with both the in situ ADCP current observation and drifter observation. Three mechanisms are proposed for the observed Lagrangian features. The primarily dynamic mechanism is the along-shore wind forcing, which induces a coastal jet that tends to leave the coast and the bottom onshore and near surface offshore transports. The second one is the convergent coastal geometry and bottom topography for the southward flow in central shelf near Tampa Bay that enforces the coastal jet and the bottom and near surface transport.

The last is a kinematic one, simply due to the short along-shore Lagrangian excursion, driven by the typical synoptic weather systems. Thus near surface shelf waters over the north may not reach the southern coast of the West Florida. Implication is that surface hazard such as oil spill that may occur outside of the southern West Florida shelf may not greatly impact the southern coastal region except Florida Keys. However, the biological and chemical patches over the north that may occur in the water column such as red tides still can easily reach the southern coastal region through the subsurface and bottom waters.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VBJ-3WTNMDS-6&_user=10&_coverDate=07%2F31%2F1999&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1337931038&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=a7d8ccaededf932fac333b712f2ea125

Even if the oil doesn't wash ashore on Tampa, will the corexit? Corexit is one on the most (THE most?) toxic substances in the Gulf right now and is far worse of a hazard than the crude oil, if that weren't bad enough.

which means that it may get everywhere.

little Costa Rican boys. ;)

Thanks for the thread, trumad.

It's summer. In Florida. Everyone drinks a lot of water, yours truly included. This is awful news.

Guess I'll go stock up on distilled water jugs.