Reports started coming in last night about BP's oil reaching the shores of Mississippi, with "large patches of thick oil" according to ABC (Australia):
Hundreds of globs of brown oil began washing ashore Mississippi tourist beaches at Ocean Springs and fishing hot spots on Sunday.
"This might be the last time we are able to come to the beach," Ocean Springs residents James Vogeney said. "What makes us so mad about all of this is that it could have been avoided. All of it."
Another resident, Mike Hollings, says he cried when he saw the oil start to wash ashore at the beach. "Life as I know it is over. What are we going to do if nobody cares to act fast enough," he said. Wildlife officials have picked up one pelican covered in oil and one dead turtle.
This adds Mississippi to the list of affected states, which includes Florida, Louisiana and Alabama. Tar balls reported in Texas have not been conclusively proved to be from BP.
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, who has previously defended BP and made such foolish statements as declaring crude oil safe as toothpaste, has now done an about-face on his previous "move along, nothing to see here" position. Now that the oil has fouled his own state's beaches, he's calling on BP and the Federal government to increase resources for Mississippi to help combat the ecological catastrophe.
