Reporter tours Florida’s inland waters, sees BP workers in chest-deep water scooping up submerged oil BY HAND

A Pensacola News Journal reporter went out on a boat tour last week with two fishermen who didn’t want to be identified. Here’s what they found:

• “A wide swath of oily sheen floating on the surface of the water in the bay near the Pensacola Pass.”
• “BP workers wading out in chest-deep water and hand-scooping oily matter from underneath the sand at Barrancas Beach.”
• “Clean up [of] orange-colored ribbons of oil — one a half-mile long — about a foot below the surface of the water near the beach.”
• “The two fishermen easily found an abundance of large tar mats and tar
  balls of various sizes submerged under thin and thick layers of sand.”

The fishermen told the PNJ “they’re not confident all the oil will be cleaned up.” One said, “It’s going to be messed up around here for awhile.”