Bermuda and the BP oil spill The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is being played out in front of our eyes like a soap opera. BP even have remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROV) showing the world live feeds from 5,000ft below the surface. The amount of oil spewing into the ocean is frightful and sad. Emotions are high and BP are getting slated.

For the first morning since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on April 20th, BP have announced some better news in that the latest containment cap is showing the first signs of promise funnelling off 10,000 barrels of oil to the surface. But since that fateful April day over 39 million gallons of oil have been poured into the Gulf of Mexico affecting 80,000 sq. miles of ocean. The coastal towns of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida watch with mouths agape.

Computer models show that oil leaking from the damaged well could enter the Gulf Stream and move around the tip of Florida in the next few weeks and then travel as far north as Cape Hatteras in North Carolina, which on the American east coast is the nearest landmass to Bermuda 600 miles away in the Atlantic.

Potentially the oil could reach Bermuda's pink shores but Friday the Environment Minister Glenn Blakeney allayed concerns by saying there is little risk of fresh oil reaching Bermuda. Nonetheless there is a threat related to the defacing of beaches by tar balls, but more significant is the potential damage to sealife and Bermuda's coastline from the use of powerful chemical dispersal agents being used in large quantities.

This is already the USA's worst ever environmental disaster, if the oil slick makes it way to Bermuda and then onto the Artic and Europe then the world faces an ecological disaster of unknown proportions.  ¶ 10:15