Author name: bruce

Expect oil to continue washing ashore on Florida’s beaches between Escambia and Walton counties, Florida Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Michael Sole said Thursday. The state was expected to mobilize heavy equipment Thursday to clean up the beaches. But research by the University of South Florida suggests that such efforts can’t clean up all of […]

“There really is a psychological cloud descending over the Panhandle. And frankly that is beginning to affect the rest of Florida.” George H. Sheldon, secretary of the Florida Department of Children and Families, June 23, 2010

Florida Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Michael Sole is asking NOAA to scale back the federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico that are closed to fishing. On Wednesday, there were 78,597 square miles of the Gulf of Mexico closed to fishing. That’s an area larger than Florida and 34 other states but it represents

Darryl Willis, a new media new face for BP in its response to the ongoing Gulf oil spill, says he doesn’t consider himself a star — or a potential new target of the company’s critics. Willis, who oversees BP’s claims process on the Gulf coast, spoke Wednesday in Tallahassee to the BP claims working group

Some of the heaviest oil yet washed ashore today in Pensacola Beach where Gov. Charlie Crist and President Obama visited last week, according to news reports “It’s pretty ugly. There’s no question about it,” Gov. Charlie Crist, who arrived at the beach expecting to see tar balls, but not pools of sticky goo, said, according

Gov. Charlie Crist on Tuesday asked BP for claims information submitted as a result of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill while other state and local officials expressed frustration with the company. The governor on May 11 created the Oil Spill Economic Recovery Task Force to help businesses and industry recover from the loss of business

A sweeping arm skimmer vessel collects oil in the Gulf of Mexico on June 10. Florida is asking federal officials and BP for more vessels to skim oil from the Gulf and has hired five of their own to operate in bays, state officials said. Tar balls washed ashore in Walton and Bay counties and

Gov. Charlie Crist said Monday that conference calls among state and county emergency officials dealing with the oil spill now are open to the media. The Division of Emergency Management holds the conference calls daily. As recently as last Wednesday, the Florida Tribune and other media were denied requests to monitor the calls. Division of

Coordinated federal coastal and ocean planning would have allowed Florida to play a greater role in decisions that may have averted the oil spill disaster in the Gulf, ocean experts said Friday. The Florida Coastal and Ocean Coalition held a one-day conference in Tallahassee that was sponsored by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the

Incoming Senate President Mike Haridopolos on Thursday, while announcing his plans to moderate an energy conference in Orlando in August, blamed Gov. Charlie Crist for the failure of a renewable energy bill during the legislative session. The July 8 “Florida Energy Summit” will be hosted by Citizens for Clean Energy, a new nonprofit group formed