http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/jun/24/na-usf-official-oil-seen-near-jacksonville/news-metro/

By ROB SHAW

Traces of oil from the gusher in the Gulf of Mexico have traveled to within a few miles of the Jacksonville and Cuba coastlines, a University of South Florida official said Wednesday.

“Some of the tar balls may start showing up on the east coast as far as Jacksonville,” Bill Hogarth, dean of the College of Marine Science at USF, told members of the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association in a telephone conference call.

Satellite imagery interpreted by researchers at USF shows the oil continues to be a part of the loop current, the conveyor belt of water that dips from the Gulf and into the Florida Straits before traveling up the east coast as part of the Gulf Stream.

As the oil continues to spew a mile underwater and the calendar gets deeper into hurricane season, the cause for concern about potential impact on Florida grows, Hogarth said.

“We’re getting more nervous,” the dean said. “Things are getting very delicate right now.”

That goes for the tourism industry as well.

“July is in limbo,” said Mike Chouri, general manager of the Hilton Sandestin Beach Golf Resort and Spa. “We have no idea what July is going to be.”

The Panhandle hotel is getting a “massive number of calls” related to the oil catastrophe.

“People are not making a lot of future reservations,” Chouri said.

Those who are making plans to stay at the waterfront Destin hotel are only planning trips two or three days out, he added.

Workers at the hotel have used six bulldozers to build two berms on the beach in an effort to keep any oil that might wash ashore at bay.

“No one stopped us,” Chouri said. “We had to do it. We have to protect our beach.”

Paul Wohlford, vice president of marketing and sales at the Edgewater Beach Resort in Panama City, also lamented about next month being a big question mark.

“July is an absolute unknown for us and that is our biggest month,” he said.

Special thanks to Richard Charter